


Puzzle Pieces

by authoresskika



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Compliant, Drabbles, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:36:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 31,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3705459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authoresskika/pseuds/authoresskika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles, smutty one-shots, and the occasional outtake from my time on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everlark -- "Don't Fucking Touch Me"

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings, gentle reader!
> 
> For those of you in the Tumblr-know, you'll likely have noticed a THG Fandom Tumblrite's penchant for drabbling. So many brilliant-beyond-brilliant stories come out of little one sentence prompts on that website from this incredibly talented fandom...
> 
> ...And then there are mine.
> 
> But for whatever they are worth, this collection will be home to them. All typos are entirely my own, since I don't ever send a drabble to beta. Take heed of notes on the beginning of each entry for pairing (most will be Everlark, but there will be dissenters), setting, and whether or not there be dragons/adult content/objectionable or triggering themes. 
> 
> And as always, happy reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Canon, post-MJ, pre-epilogue

There’s a thick blanket of snow outside, effectively trapping them indoors for the last several days. They haven’t even seen Haymitch, not with the way the wind has been howling and rattling the windows in their panes. They keep a fire burning constantly in the hearth to keep the house warm, even taking to sleeping curled up on the sofa because their bedroom is simply too chilly. Peeta’s had the oven on nearly every second they’re awake, combing the recesses of his brain for any recipe he’s not baked for her yet that she might like to try. By now, however, they’ve nearly run out of flour and butter, and some of the confections he baked the first day of the blizzard have begun to grow stale. Katniss bristles at the apparent waste of food, while Peeta’s mind flits back to a childhood where everything he ate was that consistency and harder.  
  
There’s some venison in the deep freeze that’ll make up a stew with for supper. As he chops up onions and carrots, Peeta debates how many layers he’d need to pile on to take some over to Haymitch. Katniss slips into the kitchen, her tread as quiet as ever, and says nothing as she picks up a pair of scissors and begins to snip stems of herbs off the plants they keep in the kitchen window. He glances periodically over his shoulder at her, and only steps over to her when she begins to snip off some tarragon as well as rosemary.  
  
“Those two won’t really go with—”  
  
He’d placed his hands lightly on her hips as he stood behind her, and takes a massive leap back when she shudders at the touch and jerks away from him.  
  
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she growls at him.  
  
They stare at one another in stilted silence for a moment, Peeta in utter shock, Katniss closing in on herself more and more with every moment that passes.   
  
Finally, she opens her mouth and says, almost inaudibly, “You… Touching me is the problem to begin with.”  
  
He gapes for a long moment. “I… I never touch you unless you want me to.”  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
It takes him longer than it should to notice the way she’s clutching at her abdomen and staring at her hands.  
  
“Oh, Katniss…” he says longingly.  
  
“I just… I’m still scared, okay? I’m so scared, Peeta.”  
  
He thinks it’s okay to be scared. He’d worry about her if she wasn’t a little scared. Because he is, too.


	2. Everlark -- "You Don't Have to Stay"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU; adult content

He spills inside her with a savage grunt, and slumps off of her. They lay side by side for several long minutes, not speaking, simply catching their breath.   
  
It’s been like this for weeks. It’s like they’ve forgotten how to communicate any way but physically, and the only comfort or affection the can offer one another is confined to sweat-soaked sheets or a hastily cleared off countertop. Peeta doesn’t know how it got like this. And he knows that even if he were ask Katniss, she’d never give him a straight answer. She’s infuriating like that. But she’s still his in a moment like this one, if only for the few glorious moments he’s sheathed inside her before they cry out one another’s names in a final swoop of ecstasy.   
  
Before her sister died, they could talk. And laugh. And be out in public and in love, even if she’d shrug her way out of any form of excessive affection he tried to ply on her. But then Prim’s illness won the long battle, and Katniss hasn’t been the same since.  
  
He wants her back. He just doesn’t know how to reach her, other than this.  
  
He’s rolling onto his side to face her and wrap his arms around her. Pull her against his chest and run his fingers through her hair.  
  
Then she says it. “You don’t have to stay.”  
  
She doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to. She means she’d prefer to sleep alone. Maybe so she doesn’t keep him awake when the nightmares of lost children and mutated diseases ravage her subconscious.  
  
“No,” he says quietly. “I guess I don’t.”


	3. Everlark -- "Oh Fuck, Oh Fuck"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU; adult content

Christ, he feels good inside her. Maybe the lightheadedness she feels has lingered from the wine, or from the impressive work he’d done between her thighs with that talented tongue of his, but she feels a bit like she’s floating. He’s making love to her slowly, laving her neck with kisses, whispering all the sweetest and right words in her ears—that alone might be enough to make her come for him again.  
  
“Are you ready for me?” he grunts in her ear.  
  
She drags her nails roughly down the sinewy plane of his back and gasps, that being the only response her brain can properly form.  
  
“Oh, fuck, ohhh fuckkkk…” he moans, and snaps his hips roughly, sending her teetering over the edge just before he stills after one last, illustrious jerk.  
  
He kisses her hairline, the backs of her ears, and trails his fingertips reverently along the scars that mar her skin. She resists the urge to swat his hands away when he does this. He presses his lips against the long, jagged, and still angry red mark that extends from her sternum up and over to her shoulder blade. Then he rears up on his knees and the look of bliss on his face is replaced with one of… Well, horror, for lack of a better term.  
  
“What? What’s wrong?”  
  
“Oh fuck, oh, fuck!” he swears.  
  
“Peeta, what is…”  
  
She looks down and gasps. The latex sheath she’d helped him secure around his cock is in tatters.


	4. Katniss/Peeta/Finnick -- "I'm Not Cut Out for This"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark + Finnick Odair; Modern AU; adult content

She flips from her belly to her back and huffs exasperatedly. It’s the third night in a row she’s not been able to sleep. All she wants is to fucking sleep.  
  
Peeta’s fingertips curl underneath the hem of her sleep shirt and ghost over her navel. It sends a chill up and down her spine, and she smiles automatically at him.   
  
“Can’t sleep?” he asks groggily, rolling over to nestle his face against her breasts.  
  
She rakes her fingers through his curls and shakes her head. “I can’t turn my brain off.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
 _About what?_  he says. Like it isn’t obvious. Like the sleep-riddled grunt of the extra weight in bed with them isn’t enough of an indication.   
  
She drops her voice as low as it can go. “I just… I’m not cut out for this, Peeta. I don’t know if I can keep this up.”  
  
“If you feel that way, we have to tell him,” he whispers back.  
  
She sighs again, and considers the bare, broad, bronzed backside of the third person in their bed. She thinks to the woman that Finnick lost, and how broken it’d left him. She thinks about how the offer for him to stay with them had brought joy back into his green eyes. And she thinks long and hard about how much white liquor they’d all had the first time this had happened.  
  
How much  _less_  they’d had the second time.  
  
How now it doesn’t even require a sip now for them to fall in together, and fall apart together in a jumbled heap of limbs and swollen, well-kissed lips.  
  
“He’ll understand,” Peeta says tentatively, although Katniss knows as well as Peeta does that Finnick really wouldn’t understand. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t the loves of his life, like Annie was. What matters is that this is how they’ve chosen to help him survive. And if anyone deserves a chance at survival, at being given another chance at a bright spring to replace a depressed winter, it’s Finnick Odair.  
  
She pushes back the hesitation and grinds her thigh gently into Peeta’s groin. His body responds in kind, and it’s just a second later that he’s got his lips sealed over hers.   
  
“Let’s wake him up,” Katniss gasps against his lips.  
  
His eyes go wide with lust. “Can I… Take you from behind this time?”  
  
She nods and rolls over to nudge Finnick awake. The next minute, two soft mouths have latched on to the tender skin of her neck, and two different hands are slipping her sleep shirt up and her pajama pants down.


	5. Hayhanna -- "I'm Sick of Being Useless"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch/Johanna; Canon Compliant

The door to the roof of the training center swings open, and Johanna breezes through without a word.

“What’s up?” she says haughtily.

“I… I need you to do me a favor, Jo…” Haymitch says quietly.

The relative ease with which she stands in front of him changes palpably in just that short amount of time.

“Forget it,” she says. “They’ll never go for it. I saw the nasty little my-shit-doesn’t-stink plastered all over her face in the elevator. She wants my help in the Arena, she can damn well ask for it herself.”

“That isn’t what you and Blight agreed on,” he says, a warning in his voice.

“We agreed not to hunt them down. We agreed to go after the Careers and give your little lovebirds the best possible chance they can get.”

“You know how big this all is, Johanna!” Haymitch snaps. “You know what’s at stake more than almost any of us! Why are you—”

“At the end of the day, Haymitch, it’s  _my_  life,” she snarls. “And it’s all  _I_  have left to lose.”

Still, there’s that glint in her eyes. The spark of her own that tells him that this conversation wasn’t really necessary, and this was as much Johanna Mason putting on her best tough-girl facade as it is anything else.

When the time comes, she won’t hesitate.

"You oughta stay sober there, old man,” she says snarkily, looking squarely at the lump of flask in his breast pocket. “Can’t start being useless now, or we’ll all get left behind.”

He lifts it between his fingers and gives it a jiggle, pointing out it’s near emptiness.

“Yeah, well,” he says, “I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of being useless.”


	6. Everlark -- "Shit, Are You Bleeding?!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU; Alcohol trigger

The whiskey at Sae’s is always so smooth, so free-flowing, that it’s easy for them to get a little carried away. Tonight is no exception. At least they had the presence of mind not to drive.

Katniss is tottering in precariously high heels she wore just for him. Even in his drunken stupor, he’s highly appreciative of the way her ass looks in her jeans as she walks just a step or two in front of him.

As they walk near the city graveyard, an owl hoots. Katniss dissolves into maniacal giggles before pushing her lips together and whistling out a four-note tune again and again. She scowls when the owl simply hoots again in reply, then goes silent.

“Babe, owls don’t respond to whistles,” Peeta slurs. The alcohol is roiling in his stomach — he probably should have eaten something a little more substantial than just a couple of leftover cheese buns from his shift at the bakery that morning.

“That’s bullshiiiiiiiii—!” she squeals, pitching forward after the stiletto heel sinks in a crack in the sidewalk and knocks her face forward onto the cement sidewalk.

He’s about to ask if she’s alright when she sits up and starts cackling all over again.

“Shit, Katniss, are you bleeding?!” he asks as he sees a torrent of black ooze stream down her face from the cut right above her eyebrow.

She’s laughing too loudly to respond. He practically has to hoist her over his shoulder to get her home, and his drunken first aid job just barely staunches the flow of blood before they pass out in their bed.

* * *

The next morning, he’s nursing a beer and some dry toast to help with the overwhelming hangover when she comes in to the kitchen clutching one of the bathroom towels to her face.

“Shit… Katniss, what’d you do to your face?!” he asks groggily, trying to wade through the miasma of the previous night’s stupor. “Are you bleeding?”

“Yeah,” she says, sounding every bit as hung over and confused as he did. She steals his beer and takes a long pull, scowling over the bitterness of his preferred IPA. “Shit, Peeta, what did we  _do_  last night?”


	7. Everlark on Vacation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU

We know it’s not a ski chalet in Switzerland, or a beachside bungalow on the Gold Coast. It’s definitely not an incense-infused marketplace in Marrakech, and it will probably always lack the grandiosity of a vineyard in Sonoma Valley – but this place is ours.

And it’s my favorite place in the entire world.

Before Hope and Asher came along, Katniss and I went to Switzerland and Australia and Morocco. Two of our best friends got married at a vineyard in Sonoma Valley, even. And while those places are beautiful and vibrant, and truly the sorts of sights everyone really ought to see before they die, this tiny little lake house, with its wide windows and dock leading out to cold, lapping, crystal-blue water is where we keep coming back to. I’m not even sure it counts as a vacation house any more, really, although it’s where we honeymooned after I finally convinced Katniss to marry me. I’m almost positive it’s where Hope and Asher were conceived. But that’s not the only reason I love it here so much.

I love every version of Katniss -- I love the scowling cynic, the over-protective mother, the fiercely independent woman who never backs down from a fight. But there is a special place in my heart for Katniss at the lake house, because she’s the most extraordinary being I’ve ever met. The lake house is where Katniss’s truest, most brilliant smiles come easiest. It’s where an arrow flies straight and true from the bow that’s a natural extension of her arms, and always finds its target (even when we have to fib a little about how the formerly furry creature that Mommy hunted to be our dinner was “purchased at the grocery store”). It’s where her patience is endless, be it teaching her sinks-like-a-stone husband to swim for the first time at 26, or explaining to her part-mermaid daughter that it’s pretty frightening for us when she dives under the dock and doesn’t come up for several minutes at a time. In a way, I think the lake house is really where Katniss feels the most at-home, even though we’re only ever there a few days at a time.

Who knows. Maybe it’s the noted lack of distraction via cable, Wifi, and cell phone reception, but when we’re there, it’s where my family seems to work best. Asher rarely gets under Hope’s larger feet and therefore under her skin. The fresh air coming in their window lulls them to sleep early and almost all the way through the night, every night. It gives Katniss and me the chance to clean up and settle in from the exquisite exhaustion of a full day of hiking and swimming with them before we can finally exhaust one another. The moonlight peeks perfectly through our own open window and illuminates her face as we make love. Those are the moments when I get to see every expression her face is capable of pulling all in luscious tandem before pure pleasure overtakes them all. Even when being quiet for the sake of not disturbing the little beings down the narrow hallway, it’s where she and I can come together and come apart the way we did when we were first married and lust was always on our minds.

And wouldn’t you know it… It’s where the third swell of Katniss’s slender belly came from, as well.


	8. Everlark Plays a Drinking Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Canon AU; alcohol trigger warning

He’s tired of making exceptions and excuses for her, so he’s decided he’s not going to anymore. Instead, he’s going to treat her exactly as he had years before.

He sneaks down to the pantry when he knows she's well and truly asleep. He will miss how well this makes her sleep, but that's the only thing. Otherwise it has to be done, and he won't be made to feel bad about it.

He makes a game of it. He hums verses of songs she used to sing before things got so bad as the fluid leaves the glass bottles, seeing how far he can get through the song before the contents are reduced to mere drips. He holds two different bottles in each hand and dumps them simultaneously, making bets with himself as to whether the left or right will empty out first. It's a dumb way to pass the time, but he figures there are worse games to play with this toxic stuff.

He's throwing the last empty bottle into their rubbish bin when she comes down. It's like something has told her what he's doing with her stash. The liquid is seeping out of her pores and her anger is palpable even before he turns around to face her.

"How  _dare_  you?" she seethes. "That is  _mine_."

"And you don't see how much it's damaging you. And me. And  _them_."

"They're fine.  _I'm_  fine."

"They ask why mommy smells like Uncle Haymitch, Katniss. Nothing about that is fine."

She doesn't know what to say, he can tell.

"It helps me..." Her voice is so sad.

He pulls her against his chest and holds her fast. "We'll find something else to help you, my love. But please... please not this. Not anymore."

He holds her when she begins to weep for the lost alcohol, although they both know that isn't really what she's weeping for. They have lost a lot, but there has to be another way for her to cope. He believes in her that much.

When he whispers that he knows things can be good again for them -- for her -- even and especially without this stuff, he feels her nod her head against the tear-soaked patch of his shirt.

It might take a lifetime for her to believe him. But he's willing to give her that much time and even more if she'll only try.


	9. Pirate!Everlark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; College Modern AU

**> >come on P you'll be doing me a massive favor!**

I wanted to ignore Delly, because no way was I okay doing this. Until...

**> >I convinced Katniss to help out ;)**

That changed everything.

 And now, here I am, in possibly the most insane set of clothes I’ve ever worn in my life.

Delly is a fantastic seamstress -- seriously, it’s no wonder she’s the star student of the costume design department. I can’t get a straight answer out of her about why my outfit involves a pair of linen, lace-front breeches that taper and puff below my knees and a billowy peasant-top that’s a little too snug around my shoulders. Maybe she thought she’d have a different model?

She comes in a minute later with my “finishing touches”, and it starts to make sense.

“Piracy is back in fashion?” I ask, a little amused. “And here I thought that fourth film installment killed the craze?”

“Oh, hush. It’s a variety thing. And the more elaborate the costume, the better it looks in my portfolio,” Delly says as she ties the bandana around my head to hide my curls. “Now, if only you were short a leg for a peg…”

“Don’t get any ideas, Dell,” I warn.

I’m about to ask about Katniss -- because yes, I’ll admit, I only volunteered so that I might get to spend a few minutes with the woman who’s been the object of my affection for an embarrassingly long time -- when she walks in and stops the words before they leave my throat.

I don’t know what I expected -- a wench costume, I guess, all draping and bustles and maybe a corset. But I did not expect this. Her breeches are velvet to my linen. Her coat is down to her knees and the color of claret wine. A hat with black and white plume feathers nearly, but not entirely, covers her kinked hair, no doubt just out of her usual braid down her back. Supple leather boots hit her at mid-thigh. If I’m the ship’s deck hand, she’s undoubtedly my captain.

 _Jesus_. And here I thought I was a goner before.

“I thought the gender-swapped roles would be interesting… Don’t you think so, Peeta?” Delly says impishly.

“I… Ah…”

“I feel ridiculous,” Katniss groans, the good humor on her face already giving way to a much more familiar scowl. “And hot. Can we… just do this so we can get that pizza you promised me?”

“Sure!” Delly chirps, and picks up her camera. “Peeta… You want to come get pizza with Katniss afterwards, right?” She winks at me coyly, and snaps a test shot for lighting or something.

I think I agree, although my tongue is so thick in my mouth I have no idea what I say. But really, I’m dumbstruck that Delly has, indeed, added a corset to Katniss’s outfit. Historical accuracy be damned -- Katniss Everdeen in a corset might be the thing that puts me in an early grave.


	10. Everlark Meet in the ER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU; single parents!Everlark

Peeta sits back in the plastic bucket seat, the sharp antiseptic smell of a hospital battling with the acrid scent of the coffee he presses to his lips. He sips down the bitter liquid, and wishes for sugar to cut the stale flavor.

“Stop it, that one’s  _mine_!” Rosemary shrieks.

“Nuh-uh, that one’s  _mine_!” August yells back.

“Guys!” Peeta says, his voice stern. “You can share your crayons. And you can definitely stop yelling, there are other people in here waiting with us.”

“But Daddy…!”

“No buts, Rosie-baby. Share with August.”

Peeta smiles awkwardly at the few people who shoot him nasty looks; he wonders if they can figure out that not being able to share is part of the reason they’re here in the first place. 

Rosemary scowls and goes back to coloring her page. August puts down his own crayons and touches a finger tentatively to his protruding left nostril.

“Careful with that, kiddo,” Peeta says. “You don’t want so shove that marble the rest of the way up into your brain, do you?”

August giggles, ostensibly at the joke, but his face falls just a second later.

“Uh-oh. Um, did you call my—“ August stammers, then stops cold.

“August!” a female voice calls out. Peeta spins around in his chair and takes in the frantic-looking brunette rushing towards them. He’d called Delly and Leevy to call August’s mom when he’d decided to take the boy to the ER, and he’d suspected she’d be upset. He wasn’t expecting her to be vibrating with anger.

“August! We talked about this!” the woman says, then the wind seems to leave her sails. She clutches the boy to her chest and breathes a sigh of relief. “You didn’t get hurt any other way, right?”

“No, I’m okay. Peeta just couldn’t get the marble out,” August says, looking at Peeta.

 _Traitor_ , Peeta thinks. Then the woman rounds on him, her quicksilver eyes slits, a scowl set deep on her face.

“Weren’t you  _watching_  him?” the woman hisses.

“Of course I was! I looked away for two seconds and—“

“Oh my God. Where are Delly and Leevy? Who even are you?”

“That’s my daddy, Katniss” Rosemary says proudly. 

“Peeta Mellark,” he says and offers his hand. He can feel the eyes of the other waiting patients boring into his head. They might be wondering, as he is, if there’s going to be another patient soon. This woman looks like she’d gut him if she had a sharp enough carving knife. 

“Oh. You’re the father. But why aren’t Delly and Leevy—“

“I have Rosemary during the week because I’m closer to her school, but I’m going out of town next week and I wanted some time with her before I went. Dell said she was going to tell you—“

“She didn’t.”

A nurse calls August’s name at long last. Peeta stands back as the boy’s mother snatches his hand and walks back with the woman in scrubs, anger radiating off her in waves. When he sinks back into the chair, Rosemary crawls up into his lap and settles there.

“Katniss is real nice, Daddy. I bet she’s just scared ‘cause Mommy told her August had to come here. He’s kinda dumb sometimes.”

“Don’t say that about your friend, it isn’t nice.” As he scolds her, he silently thinks that he really, really wished his ex-wife would have just called this Katniss woman and told her he’d be taking over the kid’s playdate today. He doesn’t like being blindsided by short, huffy women who are alarmingly attractive even when they’re yelling at him.

Peeta helps Rosemary color in the rest of her page. By the time they’re done, Katniss and August have returned, August clutching the marble between his thumb and forefinger. 

“See, Rosie, I told you it wouldn’t be up there forever,” the boy says.

“Ewwww! Did it hurt?” Rosemary asks him.

“Nah, not too bad.”

“Go sit down with her for another minute and color, August,” Katniss says, then settles in a chair near Peeta with a bunch of paperwork in her lap. She huffs, clicks the pen open, and begins to scribble. Peeta doesn’t mean to look over her shoulder; when she catches him, she glares back.

“Sorry. Sorry, I’m nosy.”

“Nosy? Really? That’s the word you choose?”

Peeta laughs; the woman makes him pleasantly nervous even after she begins to laugh, too.

“Sorry I was so snippy with you when I came in,” she says after a minute, her voice lowered. The kids seems oblivious to her words, and Peeta finds himself leaning towards her to hear her better. “I don’t know if Delly told you, but… August isn’t my son. He’s my nephew, technically — my sister died right after he was born. He’s sort of all of her I have left. I’m a little overprotective.”

“I might have had the same reaction if it was Rosemary, and she was with a stranger. It’s alright. And I’m sorry, too, for the confusion. And for him ending up here.”

“The shoving-things-up-his-nose thing is a weird habit of his. I’m not all that surprised.” Katniss pauses; there’s a hint of a smile on her face. “Delly, ah, talks about you a lot. So does Rosemary.”

Peeta grins. “Yeah?”

“You’d think Delly didn’t really want to divorce you from how she speaks about you.”

“Well, if we could have figured out a way to make her being gay work with our marriage, maybe we’d still be together,” Peeta says wryly. It makes Katniss laugh again, and he feels a surge of excitement course through him.

He wonders exactly how long is appropriate before asking the surrogate mother of the kid he brought to the ER out to coffee after she’s screamed at him. Maybe it’s too soon, but he’s opening his mouth to do so when Rosemary shrieks, startling both he and Katniss out of their moment of whatever-this-is that’s passing between them.

“Daddy! Daddy, August did it  _again_!”

He and Katniss look over at the boy, who looks back at them sheepishly, the marble firmly wedged up his other nostril. Despite Rosemary’s apparent disgust with her little friend, Peeta and Katniss share a quick look before they both start to laugh.


	11. Everlark and Finhanna Meet Again at a High School Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark & Finhanna; Modern AU

It’s embarrassing enough for Johanna that she never made it out of this stupid, one-horse town—it’s insult-to-fucking-injury when she realizes that the only date she’ll have to her damn high school reunion is her sad-sack divorcee of a roommate.

Except Katniss, ray of sunshine that she is, doesn’t want to go. No, no, she wants to lay in bed and wallow about the fact that her husband left her for someone else. And granted, that’s pretty shitty, all thing considered. But Johanna could have told Katniss that any guy who used that much styling product in his hair was never going to stay faithful for a simple-is-better kind of girl like her.

She did tell her, in fact! It’s not Johanna’s fault that Katniss not being able to listen means no reunion sex for either of them. And isn’t that sort of the entire point?

“What do I have to do to convince you to come with me?”

“Flux-Capacitor back to five years ago when I actually agreed to go down to city hall with that fucking loser,” Katniss grumbles.

“No can do, kitten,” Jo says. “I warned you, you didn’t listen. Whatever drunken state of not-Katniss-Everdeen you’d fallen victim to that day could not have been prevented.”

“Okay, then leave me alone.”

“Brainless. Look,” Jo says, curling up next to the girl on her bed. Hugging and touching are things Jo thinks are better left for girl-on-girl porn, but she’s pretty much willing to do whatever she can to get Katniss to put on a dress and a pair of sensible-for-mingling heels. “You are miserable and depressed, and I’ll let you be miserable and depressed all over again tomorrow. But tonight can you just pleeeeeease humor me and be my date?”

“Why do you even want to go to this stupid thing? You hated high school.”

“I did. But I’ll venture a bet that even still living here and being only semi-successful means I’ve got more going for me than about 60% of our graduating class. You cannot pass up an opportunity like that.”

“Sure I can. Close the door on your way out.”

“Katniss, please?” Johanna actually begs. She  _hates_  that she’s begging. 

“Why is this so important to you, Jo?” Katniss snaps.

Jo desperately doesn’t want to admit the sorts of things that make her vulnerable and girl-like. About how the crush she’d had on Finnick Odair all through high school had been all-consuming and frankly embarrassing. How she didn’t want to be the sort of girl who’d show up to a reunion on the off-chance he’d be there, but how she really was hoping he would be. And how she was really, really hoping he’d finally make good on a promise he’d made her for a dance before he’d unceremoniously gotten kicked out of their senior prom. 

Really, that was all she wanted. She’d take everything Finn had to offer if he offered it, and she wouldn’t feel bad about it at all—but she wants that damn dance already.

“I will do your laundry, your dishes, and fill your gas tank for two months.”

Katniss’s eyes narrow to slits. But finally, she hoists herself up and out of bed and gets in the shower.

* * *

The grand ballroom is so full, Katniss can hardly believe they’re in the right place. They didn’t really go to high school with this many people, did they? Katniss knew she didn’t pay much attention to people around her, but this seems excessive.

As is the amount of makeup Johanna is wearing. 

Katniss agreed to two drinks—she’d take her time with exactly two drinks from the bar, and then she and Johanna were both going home whether she was ready or not. Johanna orders their first round, handing Katniss a tumbler of whiskey filled to the brim.

“How much did you pay that guy to fill it this high?” Katniss says, agape.

“It’s a a free bar, Brainless,” Jo says, stirring her martini with her pinkie. 

“Exactly. They don’t pour drinks this large at a free bar.”

“I have my ways. Now, get a cup of soda if you must to dilute it, but that is only drink number one. No. Cheating. I’ll know if you dump it out in one of the potted plants.”

Jo winks at her, surreptitiously adjusts her bra, and disappears into the crowd. Katniss groans—she can think of a thousand places she’d like to be on a night like tonight, and here ranks directly below a booby-trapped forest where she’s being hunted like prey.

She swigs back the whiskey and lets it burn down her throat. Even her nostrils feel like they’ve been licked with flames, and she makes her way to the bar to get that soda water to water it down. 

“Katniss,” a low voice purrs in her ear, making her slosh a good swill of her whiskey down her dress. “I did not expect to see you here.”

Katniss turns and forces a smile. “Finnick.” 

“Well, you grew up nicely. What happened to all those boyish trousers and overcoats you used to wear everyday?”

“I outgrew them. You look well.”

Finnick Odair’s green eyes sparkle as he winks at her. “I feel well. It’s alarmingly good to be home for a little while. See people I haven’t in a while. ‘Course I can’t admit I’m enjoying seeing everyone. You’re a pleasant surprise, though. I heard you got married.”

She doesn’t know why she does it, but she holds up her ringless left hand. “I did. And divorced.”

Finnick gives her a genuinely conciliatory look. “That’s too bad to hear. I’m really, really sorry. My partner just went through the same thing. He’s still licking his wounds.”

Katniss’s eyebrows must vanish into her hairline. Finnick’s laugh in response echoes around the room.

“ _Business_  partner.”

“Oh.”

“You wouldn’t be the first one to suspect it, really. Apparently I’m just that fluid.”

Finnick takes a deep pull off the beer in his hand and looks around. “So, who dragged you here, then?”

“Johanna. And then she ditched me without even saying ‘have fun.’”

Finnick chokes on his drink. Katniss stares at him incredulously.

“Johanna made it?” he asks, a little too eagerly to Katniss’s thinking. 

“Oh, it was irritatingly important for her to be here.”

And then, just like that, he’s disappeared from her side, too.

She’s trying to decide how much grenadine she can add to her whiskey and not die of sugar shock when another voice echoes in her ear: “Hi, Katniss. I, ah, don’t know if you remember me, but…”

She almost drops her drink. Of course she remembers Peeta Mellark.

* * *

Johanna tries not to stew about the fact that Finnick found Katniss first, that Katniss got his attention when she didn’t even want it, while here she is, hunting for him and only being able to glean second-hand from his business partner, Peeta Mellark of all damn people, that Finnick even made it. She turns away from the scene in anger, intent to stalk down someone else who she can get a little aggression out on while she figures out her next move when a cool hand wraps around her biceps.

“Not sure where you’re going there, Jo,” Finnick’s sultry voice coos. “I believe I owe you a dance.”


	12. Everlark Gets Pregnant After a One-Night Stand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU

It was just supposed to be one night. One time. One good fuck to vent emotion and aggression, one night so they could each feel human again after being raked across the coals the last several months. They were friends—they wouldn’t let it get weird. Why did it have to get weird? And so fucking complicated…

But now Peeta is making it all the more weird. Standing outside her door in the rain? That’s weird! Why can’t he just—

“Katniss, please. Please, we need to talk about this!”

Katniss leans her back against the wall, her knees protesting her crouched position while her stomach is finally grateful for a moment where it isn’t roiling and heaving, like it has been all morning. (Every second of every day since she took that stupid test, really.)

“We  _did_  talk about this, Peeta!” she shouts back. “The conversation is over.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry for what I said, I just—I was shocked. I’m sorry!”

Johanna, Katniss’s roommate, comes storming out of her bedroom, irritation radiating from in waves. “We’re going to get complaints from the neighbors if he keeps shouting like that. You’re clearly going to let him in, Brainless, so just do it already so I can go back to my damn nap.”

Katniss glares at her, mostly for butting in, but also because she’s right. Katniss shoos the other woman away and pulls her ratty sweater closed around her torso. Peeta’s knuckles must be sore from rapping on the door like that. She yanks it open and steps aside, letting him slosh his way over the threshold.

“Go into the kitchen; Jo will murder you if you drip on her new couch,” Katniss says with a snarl.

“Thank you,” Peeta says, his teeth chattering. Now she’s going to have to make him tea or something so he doesn’t catch pneumonia.

“I didn’t mean what I said at the coffee place,” he says when he’s seated at the breakfast nook table. “You know I didn’t. I was just shocked. Can you blame me?”

“I think of  _shocked_  and I think stammering and trying to bargain with God for some easy way out of this mess,” Katniss says, moving around to put the kettle on and grab a couple of mugs. Her fingers flit over the sugar bowl before bypassing it all together, and she spins around to face him, her arms hugged around her middle. “I don’t think ‘Well, we’ll get married and go from there,’ like you clearly do.”

“I know. I’m sorry…”

“You know how I feel about marriage! How could you possibly think that’s ever something I would do on a whim like this!”

“I do know how you feel about it! I wanted to take it back the second I said it, but that’s what they tell us guys to do when we get a girl… er…“

“You might as well say it. Dodging around the word isn’t going to make it go away.”

Peeta chews on the corner of his lip. “Pregnant. It’s what we’re supposed to do when we get a girl pregnant—marry her because it’s the ‘right thing to do.’ I know it isn’t like that for you. I know  _this_  isn’t the right reason for you. But wouldn’t it have been worse for me not to offer than for that to be the first thing out of my mouth? I want to do right by you. This is happening to both of us, but I get that it’s happening to you, well, more. So tell me what you want to do, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Katniss sighs. When Peeta Mellark says things like that, it almost makes her want something more with him. But God, not  _this_  way…

“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I don’t know if I can handle this. You saying that—well, it made me feel like a terrible person for even considering not keeping it,” Katniss says, her voice small.

“Katniss, if you aren’t ready for this, I understand. It’s huge. It’s life altering. And it definitely wasn’t a part of the plan that night,” he says, getting up from the table and going over to her. “You’re not a terrible person for not being sure. If you can’t… You can’t. And I’ll support you on that completely.”

Saying things like that make her want him sometimes, too. Damn it.

“I am so fucking freaked out right now, Peeta.”

“Yeah,” he says, looping a damp arm around her shoulders. “Me too.”

The kettle whistles behind them and he reaches back to take it off the heat. The weight of his arm feels so soothing, so calming that Katniss wishes she hadn’t spent the last day and a half being so angry at him. This isn’t some guy she met in a bar. It wasn’t just any sex they had, either, and they both knew it after—that’s why it’d been so awkward when he’d gotten up and left the next morning, why they’d avoided one another for weeks afterwards. This doesn’t make her feelings any less conflicted.

“You’re shivering,” she says. (She’d said it to him that night, too…) “Do you want me to find you something to change into and I’ll put your clothes in the dryer?“

“Haha. Trying to preserve my dignity now, Everdeen? I don’t care if you see me,” he says. (He’d said that that night, too…)

“Yeah, but Jo hasn’t.” She punches him in the shoulder since it’s the best way to keep her emotions in check. “Let me find you something so you don’t catch your death.”

She’s barely a step away when he grabs her arm and crushes her to his chest. Even sodden and reeking of nervous energy, being held by Peeta is so, so comforting.

“We’ll figure this out, Katniss, okay? It’ll be alright. No matter what you decide, I’ll be there.”

Katniss isn’t sure if she wants to cry or throw up. And here she thought she’d been conflicted  _before_.


	13. Everlark at a Masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Historical AU

Her dress must weigh a hundred pounds! She’s not sure how she was convinced to attend this ridiculous ball, wear this ludicrous frock, and dance these insipid dances, but here she is. And until perfect, pretty little Primrose, all dressed in pink and ribbons everything girly and sweet, has danced out every dance on her card, Katniss is stuck sweltering under all this fabric and this stupid, stupid mask.

“ _Smile_  dear,” the hostess, Mistress Trinket, says between gritted teeth when she brushes past, her own mask resembling that of an orange and black butterfly. “Your mask doesn’t cover that scowl you’re wearing.”

 _I’ll scowl all I ruddy well please_ , Katniss thinks.

In the end, of course, Katniss would do anything for her sister. And Prim had pleaded for Katniss to attend the masquerade with her, because stern Uncle Haymitch would never allow his little Primrose out without Katniss to act as guardian. 

“It can be my Christmas present and birthday present this whole year and next!” Prim had begged. “Please, Katniss, oh  _please_!”

Katniss didn’t want to rub in the fact that Prim’s birthday and Christmas presents had been spent on the favor of keeping that mangy tabby cat that Prim had fallen so in love with, fleas and all. For a girl Prim’s age, Mistress Trinket’s balls are simply a fun evening filled with pretty dresses, white gloves, and stringed instruments. For girls of Katniss’s age, they’re mating games. There’s few things Mistress Trinket loves more than matching marriageable girls with desirable, upstanding men, and it’s no secret to her that Mistress Trinket and Uncle Haymitch have been in cahoots about her for weeks now. But Katniss has no interest in marrying, thank you very much. Especially not at seventeen!

At least, at the very very least, the food carried about on silver platters by the black-masked men in waist-coats is top notch. Katniss is full-to-bursting already, but there is still so much more her mouth is dying to sample. She’s reaching for a tiny cup of some sort of pumpkin brew, the last on a passing platter, when her gloved hand bumps that of a man’s. 

“Oh! Pardon my reach, miss. Please,” the man says with a bow, his voice cracking at the edges and giving away his age. His golden curls spill over his forehead as his head dips down. Even unmasked, she’d never be able to see his face with curls so unruly.

“No, please, sir. Help yourself,” she says, utterly failing in masking her disappointment.

“My father would never hear of such behavior on my part. I insist, miss, please. As it is, my stomach probably can’t hold another bite, but all this food looks so –”

“–Exquisite,” Katniss finishes. “Yes, I was just thinking that myself.” She tips the tiny cup into her mouth, unable to suppress the moan of delight as the flavors dance across her palate. Cinnamon, nutmeg, a bit of spice. The smell infiltrates her nostrils and makes her delirious.

The young man is lingering. His gaze is averted – perhaps he thinks it’s inappropriate to watch a young lady eat? – but flits up when she hands the tiny cup back to the waiter, who promptly buzzes off to the kitchens. It’s then that Katniss sees that the young man’s eyes are the most striking blue she’s ever seen in her seventeen years.

“ _Oh_ ,” she says.

She sees the man – boy? – swallow thickly. She’s fooling herself, she’s sure of it, but for a moment she could have sworn he was returning her pensive gaze. 

 "Thank you again,“ she says, remembering her manners. "You’re very kind.”

“Not at all, miss. There’s plenty of other morsels I’m set on sampling. There’s a display of pastry over against the far wall that I was making my way toward when I made your acquaintance. Might I… That is, if it isn’t too forward of me to ask…”

“I like pastries,” she says.  _When did she become so bold_?!

His voice dips low. “I was rather hoping you might say that.”

He offers her arm in escort. She hesitates for a second – has Mistress Trinket sent him to her specifically? Is this all some great ruse to marry her off despite her protests? Would Uncle Haymitch truly stoop so low? – but there’s something that draws her to this tousled creature, like a stupid moth to a flickering candle. She tells herself it’s the luscious pastry she’s desiring, nothing more. She ignores the steadying presence of the lad and stares ahead at the rainbow-colored serving table in front of them. 

There’s still the pungent, sweet scent of cinnamon in her nostrils. It’s a good handful more strides before Katniss realizes where it’s actually coming from


	14. Everlark in High School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU

Science has never been Peeta’s strongest subject. In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s his absolute worst. The only bright spot of Mr. Latier’s 6th period lab class is his lab partner. Ever since the Everdeen sisters entered his school last year, one of them in particular has been his science-saving-grace.

It’s either all for the best or too bad that it isn’t the one he might be a little bit in love with.

Peeta and Prim Everdeen end up as partners when no one else in the class want to partner up with either the too-smart for her own good freshman nor the guy who’d cinged his eyebrows off sophomore year. Out of this necessity blossomed friendship, and in a school where he lived in the shadow of his god-like elder brothers, it’s nice to have a friend who doesn’t think of him as “the least of the Mellark boys.”

The day they become friends for real is like any other – Mr. Latier turns the class loose to collect their lab supplies and begin their experiments. Peeta copies down the instructions from the PowerPoint projection while Prim fights the throng of other students for the beakers and petri dishes that aren’t cracked or stained. When she drops back in her seat next to him, she peeks over his shoulder at his careful scrawl.

“Doesn’t look too hard,” she says.

Peeta shrugs. “Too bad we can’t go back to working with yeast. That I could figure out just fine.”

“You only  _think_  you’re hopeless,” Prim says with a giggle. “You don’t give yourself enough credit!”

(He could explain to Prim all the ways he knows he is, in fact, the least of the Mellark boys, but that’s a whole other can of worms he doesn’t feel like dealing with. And anyway, it’s nice that someone thinks so highly of him.)

They carry out and wrap up their experiment with mere minutes left in class, which keeps them from fully dividing up the lab report sections for homework.

“We could work on it together,” Prim offers. “We’d just have to go to my house so Katniss knows where I am, is all.”

Peeta’s mind drifts to the quiet, serious, raven-haired older Everdeen and his gut twists. He doesn’t know how to tell Prim that her sister is the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.

“Um, you mean… Like go to your… Where you and your sister…”

Prim’s ever-present smile falters. “Oh. Yeah. I guess a junior and a freshman hanging out after school would be pretty lame.”

Peeta feels like a total jerk. “No, Prim, I don’t mean it like that. I just – look, we can totally hang out. Anytime.”

“Really?” Prim’s eyes glint when her smile returns.

“Yeah. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

She nods exuberantly.

“Meet me in the student lot and I’ll drive us to your house after school. If we bang it out fast enough, we could go see a movie or something after. If, ah, your sister would be okay with that.”

Prim throws her arms around Peeta, and he hugs her tight in return. A couple of the students snicker as they walk out the door, but Peeta doesn’t care.

* * *

He sits at the Everdeen’s kitchen table, scrolling through his Tumblr dash on his MacBook when Prim says she’s going to go grab the report off the printer and get ready for the movie. He’s tagging his reblog of a story about the continuing issues in Ferguson when his laptop lid slams shut so fast he’s barely able to keep his fingers from being crushed. His gaze jumps up to catch the quicksilver stare of Katniss Everdeen.

“What the hell is your deal? Are you some sicko jock part of a bet to deflower freshman girls or something? I will actually kill you if you try that shit with my sister, you realize.”

“Wh-what?!”

“You heard me. I’ll use you as target practice. What the hell are you doing hanging out with my little sister?”

Peeta has to clench his jaw to keep his head from spinning. No girl has ever made him this flustered before in his life.

“Prim and I are just friends!” he yelps. “And she’s my lab partner. We were just finishing the report from today…”

“Junior boys aren’t friends with freshman girls unless they want  _something_ ,” Katniss sneers.

“Who’s stupid rule is that? Look, I think bullshit high school hierarchy is exactly that: bullshit. Prim’s my friend. She’s–” Peeta stops himself from admitting to Katniss that Prim might even be the best friend he’s got these days. “I’m not a creep. Your sister is a good kid and I like her. As a  _friend_.”

Katniss straightens, licks her teeth, crosses her arms, and huffs. “Yeah. That’s what she said, too. Look, she’s my baby sister. I have to assume that some boy hanging out with her is trying to do something creepy.”

“You  _have_  to?”

“I’m protective, okay?”

“Ha!” Prim’s voice is incredulous as she comes back into the kitchen and stands next to her sister. “You’re  _mean_ , Katniss. You didn’t grill any of my friends at my old school like that.”

“Your old friends weren’t cute boys my age, Little Duck.”

Peeta nearly chokes when he hears the word “cute” come across Katniss’s lips.

“Whatever. I was  _going_  to be nice and ask you to come with us to the movies, but now you’ll just make Peeta feel like a weirdo the whole time. C'mon, Peeta.”

“Er… I’ll, um…” Peeta collects his things and tries not to sound like he’s taking Prim on a date. Because if there were a girl he’d like to take out like  _that_ …

“Fine, whatever. Just text me if you’re going to be late.”

Katniss looks at him again, one last searing glare before she disappears from the kitchen, leaving Prim giggling in her wake.

“Sorry about her,” Prim says.“

"Nah, it’s cool. Should we head out?”

“Yeah. And on the way, you can tell me how long you’ve had a crush on my sister and not told me about it.”

Prim winks and chucks him on the shoulder. All Peeta can do in response is gape.


	15. Everlark and Terminal Illness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU; Reference to an impending major character death and physician-assisted suicide

Numb from head to toe, I take the paper bag the pharmacist hands me. 

“It’s $127.49. It’s eligible under your FSA, if you’d like to pay that way,” he says.

I have to clear my throat once, twice before I’m able to answer that, yes, I’ll pay that way. He runs my FSA card, asks me if I want a receipt, and then begins to say “Have a nice day”, but stops.

It’s like he knows today will not be a nice day.

There hasn’t been a nice day for me for six months. Not since Katniss’s diagnosis. Not since specialist after specialist has said “We’re sorry, but there really isn’t anything we can do but make her comfortable.” Like there’s any comfort to be had when you tell someone they’re going to die, and soon. 

I’ve perfected the art of driving on autopilot. I pull into the driveway next to Katniss’s car and try not to look at the For Sale by Owner sign she’s put in the back of the green-tinted window. If it were up to me, she wouldn’t be selling that car. I wouldn’t have this fucking paper bag in my hands. I wouldn’t be going inside to give her these damn pills. 

(If it were up to me, I might take them, too.)

But I’m good at keeping promises. I’ve kept every promise I’ve made Katniss for the last twenty-four years. I’ve never kissed another girl since she kissed me on the playground when we were kids and made me promise she could have my lips. I’ve never noticed another girl since she slipped me that note junior year about not just wanting to be my friend anymore, and would I take her to the prom, even though it’s a dumb tradition and normally she wouldn’t be caught dead there. I’ve loved her since the first time our kisses went any further, so that I wasn’t just fucking her that first time, I was making love to her. I’ve respected her wishes about how and when we’d get married, if we’d ever have children, because I knew she needed to control those things and get there on her own time. And I agreed that if she wanted to die her own way, that I’d help her—that I’d hold her hand, and be there, no matter what, because it really is better she die with dignity than in pain and suffering and agony.

What I don’t know if I can promise her is that I’d ever in my life be able to love someone else the way I love her. That just doesn’t seem possible.

She’s sitting up in bed—it was a bad morning, and the seizure she’d had made even the thin tendrils of light slipping in through the blinds unbearable. I slip in the crack of the door and let my eyes adjust to the near-darkness before I call out her name. She’s awake. She sounds happy.

“All done?” she asks.

“Yeah. I just had to wait until the hospital faxed over the second waiver.” The bag crinkles because I’m clutching it harder in my hand than I’d intended to. I hope the noise doesn’t aggravate her the way it does me.

“Put it in the bathroom and come lay down with me?”

I refrain from dumping the pills down the toilet. They’re purple—what the hell kind of pill is purple, anyway? I set them on the counter, and crawl under the covers with her as soon as I’ve toed off my shoes. She’s so thin and tiny I’m afraid I’ll crush her when I put my arms around her, but she hates it when I treat her like she’s breakable.

“I feel a lot better now than I did when you left. I actually slept for a little bit. No nightmares.”

“Good, good,” I say, smoothing her hair back so I can press my cheek to the top of her scalp. 

“I’m glad that part’s done,” she says, and I know she’s talking about the pills. “Now we can just enjoy these last few days.”

“Enjoy them?” I scoff. I don’t mean to, but I can’t pretend that anything about these next few days will be enjoyable. “I’m just trying to survive them, Katniss.”

“That was the wrong word. I’m sorry. You know how I am with saying things, even when my brain wasn’t a pile of fried, rotten eggs.”

If I don’t watch myself, I’m going to do something really stupid, like cry. And God help me, she made me promise not to do that, either.

“I almost couldn’t do it,” I say thickly. “I almost couldn’t part with the prescription. The pharmacist had to yank it out of my hand.”

“Thank you,” she says. I know how deeply she means it. “Thank you for doing it for me.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. “I’d do anything for you, Katniss. Always.”

“Then love the hell out of me. Love the hell out of me so I can go with a smile on my face.”

“And what about me? How am I supposed to smile?”

It’s so selfish to ask. I’m not the one who’s going to die, one way or another.

She’s silent. She kisses me tremulously, but it’s my lips that aren’t the steady ones. She’s a rock. She’s my rock.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t fair.

I must say it out loud, because she says, “I know. But it is. And it’ll never be fair.”

She kisses me again until something stirs inside me. Something only she can manage to stoke when all I want to do is curse God and hate the world. 

“Just love the hell out of me, Peeta. Please?”

I always keep my promises to Katniss. Always.


	16. Everlark Leaves for War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU

They both leave in the morning. 

In a way it feels like the very last night of their lives. Neither are slated for longer than one year tours, but it feels like a lifetime when you’ve grown used to falling asleep in the same person’s arms.

Stretched out on the bed with her head on Peeta’s chest, Katniss sighs and lets her fingers roam across the hard plane of his abdominals. 

“What would they do if we just…didn’t show?” she wonders aloud.

His fingers are knotted against her scalp, like he’s trying to make a net out of the tendrils of her hair. When he first joined the Navy, he teased that playing with her hair was good for rope tying practice. He still does it, and she knows that it has nothing to do with ropes.

“I imagine a lot of terms that run along the lines of ‘AWOL’ and 'court-martial’ and 'disciplinary action’ and 'discharge.’”

She huffs, exasperated.

“Not even a pity laugh for the 'discharge’ joke?”

“No.”

“Alrighty.”

This was one of the many reasons she’d never wanted to fall in love. It’d be bad enough leaving a civilian partner whenever she was called up for active duty, but loving a fellow enlisted man is all the more agonizing. A civilian should be safe and sounds when you get back. There’s no telling in their situation. The not-knowing is the worst part.

“Maybe it’d be worth it. The court-martial. The disciplinary action.”

“You don’t mean that. You know you don’t mean that. It’s not a lifetime. It’ll be over before we both know it.”

“And you know I don’t believe that.”

It’s his turn to sigh. “No. I guess I don’t.”

“You’re a good liar. But you aren’t  _that_  good a liar.”

They’re both silent for a long time. Their fingers twine together and then break apart. 

“I’m not looking forward to the nightmares,” he says. She knows he’s not just talking about dreams.

She holds him close so they can guard one another against those nightmares one last night. The both dread the morning, and the awful, awful moment they’ll finally have to let go.


	17. Everlark in a World Where Their Love is Taboo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; AU similar to the world of Ann Aguirre's Razorland trilogy; adult content

She should never have asked the question. But he’s her friend; he’s always told her the truth and never once has he made her feel dumb for asking him something she doesn’t have the right to know. He knows all about this, and she doesn’t. It’s his job to know all about this.

So she asks, her voice very, very low so as to not attract the attention of the others: “Peeta — what is it like to breed?”

He looks at her for a long moment, like he’s trying to determine the best way to answer. Then he pulls her by the arm and they disappear from sight. The storage closet is tiny and pitch dark, but after several minutes in there together, their eyes adjust and she can make out his features just fine.

“You’ll never have to know about this. This won’t be your task. Are you sure you want to know?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.”

He nods his head, and they each lean against the wall, sliding down until their bottoms hit the hard floor and their knees press together in the cramped space.

“What do you know of it?” he asks.

“I only know the sounds I hear. Is it… Does it hurt?”

Peeta chuckles. “No. No, it doesn’t hurt.”

Even in the dark, she can see he’s got his eyes closed. There’s a look on his face she doesn’t recognize. His lips begin to move, and she’s drawn to them. Stares at them.

“You usually have to be naked to breed,” he says. “Naked as the day you’re born. Some of the females don’t like to be that naked, but usually we men do — it’s easier when there’s no clothing to get in the way. When it’s all skin on skin, everything just seems to… connect better.

“Some of the males I know will take the woman they’re meant to breed with fast, with no preparation. They’ll kiss her a few times until they’re hard, then lay her down, and dive inside her. I suppose sometimes doing it that way might hurt — the female really ought to be more prepared than that.”

“Um,” she interrupts. “What do you mean he ‘dives right in?’”

“You really don’t know?” he asks, agape.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I did!” She’s getting angry with him.

But he’s unfailingly patient. “Your anatomy — what’s between your legs?”

Her cheeks burn like flames are spreading across them, and she’s glad he can’t possibly see that in the dark. “Oh.”

“What’s between my legs is different. Haven’t you ever looked at one of the little males when he’s running around without shorts on?”

“ _Oh._ ”

“When you become older, that becomes bigger. And when it’s hard — when one of us males is aroused — it swells. It gets hard and it aches. When I say ‘dive right in’…”

She gets it. Her face burns hotter.

His voice dips low again. “But that isn’t how I like to do it. I like to take my time.

“I enjoy kissing. I like kissing my female until she’s breathless, until she can barely stand for how her knees are shaking. If she’s laying down, I’ll kiss her until she melts into the pallet, until her toes curl and her legs fall open. And then, I’ll kiss everywhere. Your mouth isn’t the only place that is right to kiss.”

“It… It isn’t?”

“No,” he says. “No. Every inch of your skin can be kissed. Every mound of flesh, every crook of a limb. Skin can taste salty or sweet or musky. Sometimes it even burns under my lips, when I have my female — well, when she’s turned on.”

She doesn’t know what that phrase means, but her own skin is on fire. And there’s this throbbing between her legs, like her heart has plummeted there and is pounding against her thighs. She wordlessly begs him to continue.

“When a female is turned on, she gets slick between her thighs. The slicker she is, the better I’ll feel inside her. It makes everything more fluid, more pleasurable. You know what pleasurable is — like when the hunters let you practice with them, and you beat them, and feel proud? For breeders, it’s when the other is responding to what you’re doing. It’s when they can’t help but breathe so deep you can hear the air moving from their nose to their mouth, when they sigh and mumble. I like it best when my women say my name.”

There’s a dampness between her thighs, just like he said. But he isn’t kissing her. Other than his knees, he’s not even touching her. If only his words can evoke this in her, what must his mouth feel like on hers? On her neck? The mounds of flesh under her tunic?

“Sometimes, if they aren’t prepared enough for me to enter them, I’ll put my mouth between their legs. I’ll explore their sex with my tongue, and sample how they taste — it’s always a little different, but it tingles against my tongue. Sometimes just a couple of licks will have her saying my name, and sometimes I’ll keep my face there for what seems like hours. I’ll explore every little crevice with my tongue, or my fingers, sometimes even my nose. I’ll smell them. I’ll let the moisture that comes from them seep onto my cheeks. Sometimes it makes my eyelashes stick together. And then, when I get the combination right of tongue, fingers, kiss—“

“ _Ohh_.” It falls from her lips much, much louder than she means for it to be. He stops, and she hears his breathing for a long moment before she sees him nod in the darkness. 

“Yes. Usually a little like that.”

“And then…?” she asks, trying to regain her composure even as she feels herself begin to tremble.

“And then I enter them. That’s how it has to happen for a baby to come. I kiss her on the mouth again and press my hips against hers. It’s easier to line up and enter her if she’s wet, and after all that, she usually will be. I’ll push myself inside her until I feel her accept my length, and then I pull it out again. Not all the way, just until I feel the very tip of myself at her entrance. And then I plunge in. Again. And again. And again.

“Sometimes I can do that for a long time before I’m spent. Other times, when I haven’t been with someone in a long time, or when it was my very first, I only last a couple of strokes. And then this —  _thing_  comes over me. I don’t know how to describe it, exactly, but it feels like every muscle of my body clenches all at once. My fingers and my toes cramp and my eyes squeeze shut and I shudder from head to toe. There’s all this heat that pools at the base of my spine, this incredible pressure and then… Then I spill inside her.

“That’s what it is to breed.”

She swallows hard. “Oh. I see.”

“You won’t be picked as a breeder, you know that, right? You’ll be a hunter for sure.”

“I know.”

“So why did you want to know?”

“I just thought I should be prepared, in case…”

He shifts across from her and gets to his feet. “There won’t be an ‘in case.’ You’ll be a hunter. And you won’t have any time for me anymore.”

“What?” she yelps, deeply offended. “You’re my—“

“That’s just it,” he says, and his voice sounds so… sad? “I can’t be your anything unless I were a hunter, or you are chosen as a breeder. It’s my job to breed. It will be your job to hunt. And I think that might be the end of things for us, much as I don’t want that.”

She’s never felt such an overwhelming urge to cry. As alive as it makes her feel when she trains with the hunters, as much as she wants to serve their people by providing them with food and a safe haven within these walls, she’s overcome by this desire for him now. 

She wants to breed with him. She wants his lips on her everywhere. She wants him inside her.

And it will never, ever be.

He leaves the small closet and she’s alone with her thoughts. Her raging, boiling thoughts of how unfair their world is.


	18. Gadge Meets in a Support Group

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gadge; Modern AU

Madge watches him smolder all throughout the heart-to-hearts, the “sharing of feelings” time she usually just zones out through. There are tears and supportive side-hugs and coos of “good sharing, good feelings” from the counsellor. Usually she sits and bides her time until 4:30, when the meeting ends and she’s free to hightail it out of there.

After all, Madge doesn’t really need to be here. Any woman would drive their car through a plate-glass storefront when she sees her boyfriend buying another woman flowers. 

(Right?)

But this guy looks like he  _needs_  anger management. He’s a short fuse that’s about to detonate. He’s righteous fury that’s about to boil over. He mutters imperceptible words under his breath. He rolls his eyes at all the same platitudes and motivational catchphrases the counsellor passes out like candy that she does. It makes her honestly wonder if she’s just as angry and irrational as he so obviously is.

She shouldn’t clench her thighs together thinking about what makes him so hot under the collar. He could be a wife-beater for all she knows. She doubts it – he looks… he looks…

There’s something else about him: something buried under the flickering embers that she decides it can’t possibly be that. There’s a capacity for compassion, she decides, for self-sacrifice and nurturing. Maybe it’s her own blind optimism returning to her after three months and The Florist Incident, but there’s more to this guy than just fire. There’s plenty of that, of course. But she doesn’t think she’s entirely insane she wonders if there isn’t a little bit of hope as well.

“We have a new member today,” the counsellor says. “Would you care to introduce yourself?”

“I’d rather not,” the man snarls.

Madge knows she’s playing with fire when her legs clamp together at the knees, her thighs providing just enough friction to cool the blush dwelling under her cheeks. But she can’t help but wonder if this guy might be worth the burns.


	19. Everlark -- Bad Boy/Good Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU; some casual religious references

When he moved and was transferred in to Panem Jesuit High School, Peeta Mellark took the school by storm. He personally didn’t think riding his antique Harley to school was anything notable, but the girls in school did. He didn’t realize that all the school wrestling team needed was one more guy with a low center of gravity and a solid pin, like he has, in order to go from borderline-best to undefeatable. He just wanted a new start, a place where he didn’t have to think about his past and he could focus instead on having a future. 

It only took him a few weeks to decide that part of the future he wanted involved Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss, however, isn’t interested in him in the least.

He falls for her in art class. She’s eerily quiet and shy, and sits the farthest back in a class where everyone else actually sits forward so they can be the first to grab Father Cinna’s attention for their own masterpieces. There are no other seats available except in that back row, so that’s where Peeta drops his own bag the first day. Then, day by day, he moves a chair over, a little bit closer to the pensive girl he can’t help but feel drawn to. As if she figures out what he’s doing, she begins barricading herself against the wall, her own heavy book bag taking up the chair right next to her to shield him from getting any closer. He takes it as a sign, keeps his bag in the chair next to that one so there are two in between, and goes about his work. He takes compliments and praise on his own art work from Father Cinna, from the gushing girls and the guys who have already decided he’s ‘the shit,’ but whenever he glances over at the quiet girl two chairs from him, all he gets is a scowl in return.

He asks around about her, and he doesn’t like what he hears. Words like ‘freak’ and ‘prude’ and ‘self-righteous’ are used by the guys on the wrestling team, ‘loser’ and ‘know-it-all’ by the girls who fawn over Peeta in the lunchroom. He tries to pick the quiet girl out in the crowded cafeteria, in the full-to-bursting hallways, but it’s like she’s invisible. Except in art class—in art class, she’s everything, even though they haven’t spoken a word or even looked one another in the eye.

Not being Catholic, he sort of zones out through Friday Mass. He lets his mind wander to the girl and decide how she might look if she’d ever let him fully see her face, what she might do for fun when she isn’t studying, what she might be willing to do on, say, a date with him if he ever figured out a way to break through her iron clad exterior so he could strike up a conversation. He doesn’t care what other people think of her—he can’t shake this niggling feeling there’s something really, really special about her that no one else can see.

When the choir starts their rendition of “Oh Maria,” Peeta finally figures out what it is. He looks up from studying the tread on his leather boots and actually sees the faces of those singing. Then he wants to kick himself for never noticing her there, in the center of the mezzo-sopranos. She looks down at the music book in her hand the whole time, so he still can’t see her eyes, but he can mostly see her face: it’s  _lovely_. Gorgeous, even. Is he really the only one who can see that? He pricks his ears, trying to wade through the noise of other girls in her section who tend to screech more than sing, and he thinks maybe, just maybe, he’s made out her voice. 

She could make songbirds stop to listen with a voice like that.

Ever after, he’s wrapt with attention in Mass. He listens to every word the priest says, waiting for the moment he steps down from his pulpit to let the choir take over. Listening to her sing is even better than sitting near her in art class.

As he’s trying to figure out his next move, Father Cinna assigns their midterm in the form of a group project: working together to create an entire art book celebrating the wonders of God’s green Earth. He pairs people mostly at random from the class roster, but Peeta thinks it can’t be entirely random when he and the quiet girl are paired up. The bell rings, and before the girl can grab her things and flee from the room, Peeta shoves his chair back against the wall and props his heels up on the desk, blocking her path.

She is forced to look at him. He’s never seen eyes like hers. They’re not quite storm-cloud grey, nor are they metallic silver. He’s not sure he could figure out how to mix a color like her eyes, no matter how much paint he used.

“We should probably figure out our midterm topic,” he says when she taps her foot and glares at him for being in her way.

“I’ll take care of it. I don’t need your help. You can have the grade,” she snaps. Her speaking voice isn’t quite as lovely as her singing voice, especially not with that edge to it.

“I don’t want a grade I don’t earn. And since you never show your pieces, I honestly don’t know if you can draw as well as I can—that’s not a boast, it’s just fact. I’m good at drawing. So I really think we should work together.”

“Fine.  _Next_  class. I need to go pick up my sister and you’re making me late.”

He steps aside to let her pass, and tries to pretend he doesn’t inhale her perfume (her shampoo?  _her_?) as she breezes past.

And much later that night, in bed and in the dark, he tries not to wonder what her mouth might taste like pressed to his.


	20. Strange Compliments (a Freaky Friday Fic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU; adult content

Peeta is reaching for a packet of yeast in the pantry when a terrible thought strikes him. He turns on his heel and looks at his wife warily. “Was I seeing things or was one of the girls not eating anything bread-related during dinner?”

Katniss looks up from the crossword puzzle she’s doing and shrugs her shoulders. “Oh, yeah… Ivy’s mom told me when she dropped her off she can’t eat gluten.”

Peeta’s eyes narrow. “ _Can’t_ , or  _won’t_?”

“She said ‘can’t.’ I take that to mean she’s got an allergy.”

Peeta sighs. Legitimate gluten allergies are one thing, but he’d probably go off the rails if one of his teenaged daughter’s friends is buying into the ‘ _gluten is of the devil and no one should eat it_ ’ craze.

“I’ll make omelettes in the morning too, then,” Peeta says, and proceeds to roll out his cinnamon roll dough. Out of the corner of his eye he sees his wife stretch her back and toss her pencil to the side.

“Sounds good to me. I’m going to say goodnight to them and turn in,” she says.

She pads to Peeta’s side and stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, then turns for the stairs. Despite the mess of dough between his fingers, he catches her wrist with his hand and pulls her back for a proper kiss.

“You’re not old enough to have a fourteen-year-old, you know,” he murmurs against her mouth.

She pinches his side and smirks. “Well, it helps we weren’t  _all_  that much older than her when I had her,” she says.

“Still,” he says, kissing her deeply again.

She places her hands on his chest and pushes him back. “Good night,” she says coyly as she makes for the stairs.

“Night, wife,” he says.

When the rolls are assembled, popped in the refrigerator for a slow rise, and he’s cleaned up his mess, he ascends the stairs himself. His tradition is the same, no matter how many extra teenagers are in his house—he checks in on Cole first, who at age ten still usually listens to he and Katniss about sticking to his bedtime, and then on Kassandra, who half the time fights him and reminds him ‘ _she’s not his little girl anymore_ ’ and that she needn’t be bossed around. With the presence of her friends in her room for her birthday slumber party, he reminds himself to knock and actually wait for her to answer as opposed to knocking and promptly letting himself in.

The knock itself is interrupted by his daughter’s shrill voice crying out in disgust.

“EW. Ivy,  _shut up_!”

Kass would kill him if she knew he was listening in on the other side of the door, but he can’t help himself. Peeta leans his head towards the door and pricks his ears.

“Oh, calm down, Kass, we all know it’s true.”

“I don’t want to hear that! He’s my  _dad_!”

“So? Your dad is hot. Deal with it.”

“Again. EW.”

Four distinct voices titter in amusement at his daughter’s horror, and Peeta shakes himself and steps back. Surely he heard them wrong.

“My dad looks like a troll, Kass, come on. It’s a good thing that your dad is such a fox—it can’t be nearly as embarrassing having him pick you up and drop you places as it is with my dad.”

“Or mine.”

“Or mine!”

“My dad is plenty  _embarrassing_ , and he’s. Not. Hot. Seriously, can we talk about  _anything_  else please?”

Peeta decides to forgo his usual good night to his daughter in favor of scampering off to his bedroom; for as embarrassed as Kassandra apparently is, he’s completely mortified. Katniss is still awake and pouring over a book, and barely notices as he heads straight into their adjoining bathroom. He doesn’t quite close the door behind him as he runs the tap and splashes two handfuls of cold water on his face.

He supposes he isn’t  _unattractive_. At 35, his father’s blonde hair had begun to turn ashy on its way to salty grey, and his older brothers were beginning to notice their own thinning. His, on the other hand, was still thick and unruly, and he had to have it cut more than Katniss and Kassandra combined. Thanks to the physicality of his work, his biceps and upper chest and back are still well toned and his forearms sinewy, even though his belly has gotten just the tiniest bit soft in the last year or two. Likely on account of him not taking everything his children do as a personal assault on him, he hasn’t even inherited his mother’s myriad of frown lines around his mouth and eyes. But there’s very little about himself that Peeta would actually consider “hot”…particularly in when the compliment is coming from four thirteen and fourteen-year-olds.

He strips down and tugs on a pair of black pajama pants he finds hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and begins brushing his teeth when Katniss tiptoes in behind him. She catches his eye in the mirror quickly before slipping into the private toilet, and he loses his train of thought as he watches her disappear behind the sliding door.

 _Katniss_ , he thinks, is  _just_  as attractive as she was when he first married her, and if possible, more so. There’s a softness about her as well after two children and being married to a baker. Her breasts are a bit heavier and there is just the tiniest curve to her stomach. Silvery stretch marks adorn her hipbones and the inside of her thighs, which he knows she hates but he reveres. What  _exactly_  it is that makes her more beautiful befuddles him, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

When she slips in front of him to wash her hands in the sink a few minutes later, his toothbrush dangles out of his mouth for just how lost in thinking of her he’d become.

“Coming to bed?” she asks.

He nods lamely, pushing his toothbrush around in his mouth again as he feels the need to adjust his pajama pants slightly. He spits out his toothpaste and wipes his mouth quickly before following her into the bedroom, where she’s tossing aside the too-heavy duvet before pulling back the sheets. She looks at him curiously while he stares at her.

“How do you do it?” Peeta asks her.

“What?” she says, confusion thick in her voice. “How do I do what?”

Instead of reiterating the question, he strides forward and pulls her by her hips hard against his chest. A surprised gasp catches in her throat, perhaps from the feel of his erection straining against his pajama pants. He kisses her hard on the mouth, his mouth claiming hers greedily and his tongue lapping at her bottom lip when he pulls it between his teeth. He moves his hands from her hipbones to her waist, and as quickly as he’d grabbed her, he picks her up off her feet and pushes her back onto their bed.

“Peeta, what are you…” she begins, laying on her back as she folds her legs together and hitches them off to the side. He crawls over her and props himself up on his elbow before insinuating his hand between her thighs to push them apart, and places his palm possessively on her crotch. Her eyes widen as he sinks atop her and slants his mouth over hers, silencing the rest of her sentence as he begins to toy with hem of the crotch of her panties, furrowing his fingers where he knows that despite the impulsiveness of this moment, she’ll be warm and wet and waiting for him. Fifteen years and two children later, she’s still  _his_ , and he knows  _exactly_  how to touch her.

Her short fingernails press into his shoulders as she winds her arms around his neck to pull him down on top of her the rest of the way. She sighs into his mouth when he slips his tongue between her teeth and probes his fingers between her soft folds. He caresses her languidly while his tongue massages hers, and she juts her hips upwards when his fingertip ghosts over the hood of her clit without applying any pressure at all. When he breaks their kiss and pulls away, she scowls at him for depriving her of the sensation. He smirks at her while trailing his fingers up again, finding the bud, and pressing in as he drops his mouth to the corner of her jaw. He feels her pulse flutter wildly as his lips roam the muscles and hollows of her throat, and the tiny, soft grunt she utters makes him chuckle. She tries  _so_  hard to be quiet.

“What’s gotten— _oh_ —into you?” she breathes. His fingertip has abandoned her clit to dip into her entrance, twirling around to find her burgeoning arousal. With her wetness on his digit, he trails to her clit and circles before dipping back, this time first knuckle deep, and then returns to her clit. “Peeta…”

He doesn’t really know how to explain it, and it shouldn’t matter. He sucks the thin skin above the notch in her collarbones between his teeth delicately before kissing back up her throat and peppering her cheeks and eyelids with kisses. “I just want my wife,” he says, his finger still dipping inside her and spreading her moisture up and around her clit, “is that so wrong?”

The rocking motion of his hand seems to silence whatever reluctance she might have as she shakes her head and grips his jaw with her palms. Her kiss is desperate and urgent, perhaps to make up for the slow pace of his work between her thighs, or maybe to convince him to move faster. Despite her tongue surging across his soft palate and dueling with his own, his hand is steady— _dip in, pull out, circle clit, repeat_. It drives her wild, and he does so love doing that to her.

“Peeta,  _please_ ,” she finally grunts against his mouth when her squirming hips and quiet mewls have no effect on him, except to make the bulge in his pajama pants throb that much more.

“Please what, Katniss?” he murmurs in her ear before sucking her earlobe between his teeth. She tries to suppress the growl bubbling up in her throat in the interest of discretion, but the slight rise in her voice eggs him on further.

“Make me come,” she whispers, letting her arms fall to her sides as he shifts against her and pushes a second digit inside her with determination. His thumb finds her pulsing nub as his fingers curl forward; if it weren’t for her lips clamped firmly between her teeth, Peeta knows he’d have her absolutely screaming in pleasure. He releases her earlobe and arches his lips over hers so she can mewl into mouth instead. Her fingers desperately search for purchase on their smooth sheets as he works her, until finally she comes with a massive shudder and a string of expletives that get lost on his tongue.

He’s barely slid his fingers out of her when she’s pushing him onto his back and throwing her leg over his hips. He’s so caught off guard by her insistence that their arms clash as she pushes his pants down to expose his cock and he fumbles for the hem of her camisole. She shakes her head, muttering something about how she doesn’t want to wait for him after being teased as she was, and he smirks for a second before her hand pumps over his erection while she pulls her panties to the side so she can sink down on him.

“ _Christ_ , Katniss!” he hisses, very nearly too loud. She pushes her fingertips to his lips as she begins to ride him, shaking her head to silence him. He sucks one of her fingertips between his lips and nibbles it, then braces his feet on the mattress to thrust upwards with everyone of her punishing snaps of her hips downward. “You really— _fuck_ —don’t want to wait, do you?” he groans quietly before nipping her fingertip again.

“Not tonight,” she growls, pulling her hand away from his mouth to splay across his abs for leverage. Their eyes lock upon the other’s as their breathing becomes heavier and more erratic, and subtle whimpers become full-on suppressed moans of the other’s name. They try in earnest to keep quiet, but little words like “ _fuck_ ” and “ _just like that_ ” and “ _god yes_ ” escape a little louder than they’d like. Finally, Katniss surges forward and seals her lips over his, silencing them again as they rock together unyieldingly. The new position makes Katniss’s toes curl and her walls clench around Peeta’s cock, and a few more thrusts and gasping sighs and thrashes of tongue against tongue is all it takes for him to spill inside her with a muffled grunt.

When they still, she pulls her lips away with a pop and grins down at him. He curls his fingers around her hips and keeps her pressed against his chest, smiling back at her wolfishly as he pushes a few strands of loose hair back behind her ear.

“Can I ask what got into you?” she asks breathlessly.

“I dunno… But do you mind?” he responds, cupping her ass as his softening member slips out of her and her panties slide back in place.

“Mmm. No, I can’t say as I do,” she replies.

* * *

Just after breakfast the next morning, Kassandra and her friends ask to go see a movie that afternoon instead of hanging about the house. With the caveat that they need to clean up the mess they invariably made up in her room during the night, Katniss and Peeta agree to driving them all to the mall. As her friends climb the stairs to change out of their pajamas, Kassandra lingers behind. Quiet as she is—just like her mother—neither parent notice her at first until she clears her throat, and scowls angrily at the pair—again, just like Katniss.

“You guys are  _so_. Embarrassing.”

“What? We’re not gonna lurk around the mall with you. We’ll drop you off and come get you when the movie’s over,” Peeta says defensively.

“Oh my  _god_ , Dad, you both know what I mean!” the girl trills.

Katniss and Peeta look at one another, confused for a minute more before Kassandra throws her hands in the air and huffs dramatically. “Can you just—can you  _please_  get a mattress that’s less squeaky!?”


	21. Age Gap!Everlark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU; references to a significant age gap, as well as a former teacher/student relationship; adult content

There are plenty of times in which Katniss remembers that Peeta is actually just a boy. Specifically, a boy that was once upon a time one of her high school students. It’s easy to forget, because now, Peeta Mellark is very much a man. But every so often, Katniss sees the bespeckled, acne-prone, awkwardly-carriaged boy just below the surface.

And in those moments, Katniss honestly wonders if she’s going straight to hell.

Usually it’s just a fleeting moment, like the way he still pushes his reading glasses up his nose with the knuckle of his index finger instead of his finger tip. She can recall him in the front of her classroom doing the exact same thing when lost in thought over a batch of study questions or an exam. He still to this day unscrews the lid of a bottle of water with his left hand despite being steadfastly right-handed. On nights he stays over, he likes sleeping with her bedroom windows cracked, just like he’d always ask her if he could open the windows in her classroom when the central boiler invariably made the school a sweat box on snowy, spring semester days.

When she remembers those things, when they plunge her back into years past when she was his teacher, she realizes she paid far too much attention to him, even then. She’s definitely going to hell.

They agreed to keep talk of their shared past to a minimum. But sometimes Peeta slips, like the day he texted her in the middle of the afternoon with:

**_> >Do you remember that day I stayed late so you could go over the answers to a test, and when we were done, you touched my arm and told me to have a good Spring Break? I had to run off to the guy’s locker room and jerk off after that._ **

She’d wanted to scream at him for that, because it made her feel old and creepy, and like the predator people would probably call her if they knew what they really were behind closed doors. But god, it had turned her on.

She reminds herself it’s okay now. Peeta Mellark is very much a man and very much no longer her student. He can drink, vote, buy cigarettes and lotto tickets, and he’s got the most talented tongue she’s ever known (in more ways than one). He’ll be a college graduate soon, and with his political savvy and natural oration style, she wouldn’t be surprised one day to see his name on a ballot to lead the nation. If anyone could change the world, it’s Peeta Mellark.

She can’t think about that too much, either, though, because then that means they’re finished. All she really wants to think about are the obscene things he likes to whisper in her ears when he’s rolling into her, deep and hard and fast enough to make her thighs tender and her core ache in the best possible way for hours after he’s spilled inside her. Because the only thing she wants less than for her relationship with Peeta Mellark, former student in her high school class, to get out around town and ruin her credibility completely, is to lose him.

* * *

 

**_> >Message received - Peeta Mellark - I’ll be there in ten minutes. Leave the door unlocked and go to bed._ **

Katniss feels a frisson of delight spreading from the base of her spine to her fingertips when she reads his message. She snaps the TV off with the remote control and tosses the throw blanket off her lap to head up the stairs. She pauses on the third step up, remembering she’d flicked the deadbolt in place when she’d arrived home with her groceries. She unlocks it, makes sure the porch light is on, and doubles back up to her bedroom. She slips out of her lounge pants and the over-sized plaid flannel shirt that he’d left behind last time he’d stayed over and crawls between the cool sheets of her newly re-made bed. She’s practically vibrating out of her skin with excitement. She can’t help but sort of love it when he gets a little bossy like this—it’s so unlike that sweet seventeen-year-old boy with the chubby cheeks and thin-framed eye glasses who’d say hello to her in the hallway everyday.

There’s nothing sweet about him when he pours through her bedroom door, his dark blue eyes surveying her like she’s edible. She rises from laying against her pillows and lets the blankets pool down at her stomach. Her nipples are already hardened nubs pointing straight at him, and the grin on his face is undeniable. 

“Did you leave your panties on?” he growls. She just shakes her head. “Good girl.”

With a swift yank, he tears the sheets and blankets back so they’re draped loosely over the footboard of her bed. Her skin pebbles up with gooseflesh from neck to ankle from the sudden burst of cold air, but she feels it dissipate just as quickly when he crawls over her. His hair is damp when she slides her hands in the golden curls at the nape of his neck when he covers her mouth with his own, swallowing the happy moan that bubbles up from her throat. Her leg curls up and over his jean-clad hips and his hand clasps her ass tightly as their pelvises grind together. She can already tell he’s rock hard, and wonders briefly if he has been since he got in his car after practice that evening. She wickedly hopes he has been.

His mouth leaves hers with a hollow pop, and the very tip of his tongue traces a path from the tip of her chin to the corner of her jaw. He worries the skin under her ear before charting the muscles of her neck with his lips and front teeth, causing her to hiss and toss her head from side to side. He grunts at her as though he’s frustrated with her wiggling; it’s not like he hasn’t ever mauled her neck before. She had to wear scarves to work all last week to hide a couple of particularly embarrassing hickeys in the same spots he’s devouring now.

“Peeta…careful, okay?” she gasps as she feels him nip particularly hard on one of her pulse points. Usually he’d protest by way of murmuring something about how delicious her skin tastes, but this time he obeys willingly and trails his mouth down to latch onto her breasts. Her back arches up against him, her fingers weaving ever tighter in his hair as he suckles and laps at the hardened bud in his mouth as though it’d try to escape if he eased off. She tugs on his curls to coax him to her other breast when his ministrations begin to make her feel raw and over-sensitive, and while he willingly wrenches his mouth away, he pays no attention to the other. His nails rake gently over the curve of her ass and along her side as he rolls onto supporting himself on his left elbow. His eyes find hers in the darkness as he hovers over her, his lips painfully too far out of reach. He raises his right hand to his mouth and laves his tongue over his three center digits.

“Spread your thighs so I can touch you,” he instructs. She whimpers, pressing her hand lightly on the top of his head. His laugh is a deep rumble from his chest; he loves to tease her about her lack of subtlety. “I can’t watch your face when I have my tongue inside you. Let me touch you so I can watch you—watching you fall apart is the best foreplay.”

Her knees fall open with his honey-coated words, and he lowers his moistened digits to the apex of her thighs. Sometimes he’ll run his fingers through the soft curls there to tease her, or circle his fingertip at the very cleft of her opening until she thrusts against his hand to get him to do something more; tonight he goes straight for the gold and presses the pads of his fingers roughly against the already pulsing mound of her clit.

“Oh, fuck,” she whines as he circles the nub mercilessly. Her eyes scrunch closed as he works her, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips just before she begins to pant and claw at his sinewy shoulders through his t-shirt. His fingers work with practiced precision, almost as if he’s winding the hands of a watch or spinning the dial of a combination lock as opposed to bringing her rapidly closer and closer to orgasm. Her knees lock and her toes point straight as her chest begins to quake with the first wave of delight.

“That’s my girl. That’s my girl, Katniss,” he purrs into her ear. Her hands fly to his muscular forearm for something to cling to as he somehow speeds up even more, sending her plummeting over the edge with a sharp cry of his name.

Her heart pounds in her ears as she wrenches her eyes open to see him smiling down at her reverently. The kiss he places on her lips is feather light and frustratingly brief; he rolls over so he can rear back on his haunches, leaving her skin prickling with the loss of his body heat. “Roll over onto your belly. Don’t stick your ass up in the air, just lay there and get cozy. Let me take care of everything else.”

She trembles as she rolls over, crossing her arms above her head so she has something to rest her forehead on without being completely smothered. Her ears prick up to identify the sound of his shirt whispering over his head as he yanks it off and the button-fly of his jeans separating so they can follow over the end of the bed. His weight shifts the other side of the mattress and it’s everything she can do to not watch him. There are nights for watching and there are nights for feeling everything—he clearly wants this to be a night for the latter. She swallows a heady whine when she hears the luscious rip of the foil packet Peeta always seems to have handy. She’s teased him about his Boy Scout tendencies in the past, but she certainly doesn’t complain about it.

She shudders out the breath she’s been holding when his body settles on top of her. He’s only a scant few inches taller than she is, but his broader, stockier body covers hers completely and presses her deep into her plush pillow top mattress. His lips pepper the curve of her shoulder as he insinuates his fingers between hers, coaxing her palms up to press flush against the solid wood panel of her headboard. She can feel the length of him slipping easily between her thighs, achingly closer and closer to her center with every gentle thrust of his pelvis. 

“Do you like this, Katniss? How’s it feel?” he grunts into her ear as his superior body weight grinds her ever deeper into the cushion below them.

“G-God…” she pants, trying in vain to thrust her hips back enough so that the tip of him hooks against her entrance. She swears she feels the very tip of his cock where she wants it for a fraction of a second before he glides through her slit and toys briefly with her still pulsating clit.

“That’s not an answer, lovely. Do you like feeling me like this?”

“Fuck,  _yes_!” she keens as she tries to thrust her ass up again for the better angle. “But I want more!”

“You’re ready for me to fuck you?”

“I’m always ready for you to fuck me, Peeta.”

“I love that answer.” His hands trail down her sides, pinching the curve of her breasts and caressing the skin of her ass that isn’t covered by his body before he wedges his hands under her hip bones. She clamps down on the bow of her top lip with her bottom teeth as his pelvis draws back, knowing with the next thrust he’ll be inside her. Only naturally, he doesn’t so much surge into her as much as his inches. But inch by lovely inch, his rigid length sheathes itself inside her and they both groan in appreciation.

“Sweet mother of Christ, Katniss. You’re perfect,” he bellows as his he rocks in and out of her. She sighs in appreciation as his tempo picks up and his head brushes blissfully against her front most wall. As if he knows exactly what she wants (and maybe he does), he balls his hands into fists; the gentle lift is exactly what she needs. She buries her face in the fitted sheet beneath her to muffle just how loud she knows she’s about to start screaming. It could be the muted sound of her cries into the mattress, or the way she clenches and releases her walls around his length, but he speeds up then and his breathing becomes heavy in her ear. It takes an impressive amount of willpower, but she’s able to choke back one of her squeals long enough to listen to him pant harder and harder as he tries to fuse her body into the mattress and fuck her senseless at the same time. When he finally snaps his hips against her and swears profusely, she bites down into the fitted sheet again so she can call out her adoration of the man on top of her without waking her neighbors. 

“Come with me,” he grunts as he latches onto her earlobe gingerly with his front teeth. “Come with me, lovely. You’re close, I can tell.”

She nods, catching just the shortest gasp of fresh oxygen into her lungs before she begins to thrash underneath him in wanton desperation to finish him off in the same sort of luscious way he always gets her. She bears down on his cock inside her, squeezing her walls like a vice around him before she tosses her head to the side and catches his eye. His lids are heavily hooded, but she’s able to make contact ever briefly before his mouth crashes down on hers. She inhales through her nose almost as fast as she’s panting it into his mouth, their tongues tangling into knots as he buries himself inside her deeper and deeper. One of his fists unfurls and inches towards her clit; he only has to rub a couple of tight circles before she shatters around him, her entire body going rigid as she waits for him to follow her over the edge. He pulls his mouth away when he comes so he can whimper out her name as he shudders and slumps still atop her. 

As much as she loves the weight of him on top of her, she wiggles after a minute or two to coax him to roll onto his back. The air cools her fevered skin and she draws a deep breath into her lungs just before he loops his arm under her chest and pulls her against his. She softly kisses his pec before resting her cheek against it and splays her fingers out on his rapidly rising and falling stomach. He laughs that low, sexy chuckle she’s sort of obsessed with as he runs the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. “What’s so funny?” she whispers.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just…nothing,” he says as he sobers, placing a delicate kiss to her forehead. He doesn’t anticipate the hard pinch to his oblique from the way he whines out a pathetic "Ow!", followed by another chuckle. 

“Tell me or I’ll kick you out.”

He looks timid as he worries the corner of his mouth. He sighs before he speaks.

“I um…I was just wondering - if this was, you know, a couple of years back - what my grade for  _that_  might be.” 

The smile falls from her face for just a moment before she remembers that one of their ground rules includes the occasional joke about their respective pasts in the years before this ever began.

“A-minus,” she says impishly, glancing up at the horrified look on his face.

“A- _minus_?! What the hell?” 

She shakes her head as she rolls onto her back and feigns a wide yawn. “You skipped the oral exam.”

* * *

Every so often she gazes over the screen of her laptop and studies his face for a second - never long enough so he notices, but plenty long enough to watch as his obscenely long eyelashes brush against the frames of his reading glasses. Men should not have eyelashes that long and beautiful; it just doesn't seem fair. 

Katniss likes the look of Peeta on her couch next to her, even when they're literally doing nothing. She's entering her grades into her school laptop with her feet propped up in his lap, and he's reading one of his textbooks from his Econ class. The fire burns warm in the hearth nearby, and the Pandora station is playing something dulcet with words more slurred than sang. Every so often she gazes over the screen of her laptop and studies his face for a second - never long enough so he notices, but plenty long enough to watch as his obscenely long eyelashes brush against the frames of his reading glasses. Men should not have eyelashes that long and beautiful; it just doesn't seem fair.

She inputs her very last round of grades before closing the laptop and stretching her arms high above her head. It's gotten surprisingly late and she knows he has practice in the morning; and yet, he seems perfectly content staying put. She pivots her feet off his thighs and moves to stand. He reaches out and grabs her hand before she even makes it all the way up.

"Where you going?" he asks without looking up from his book.

"Just thought I'd make some tea. Do you want some?"

He smiles at her and tosses his Econ book onto her coffee table. "Please. No sugar?"

She wants to tell him she already knows that, but she just shrugs instead. "I think there's a hockey game on if you wanna watch that," she calls over her shoulder as she pads into the kitchen to start the kettle.

"Where'd your remote go?" he calls back.

"I think it fell behind the couch."

"Ah."

She's tearing open the little packs of Lady Grey to dangle in the mugs in front of her when she hears a stifled snort and a sudden...is that a  _buzzing_? She peers around the corner back into the living room just in time to see Peeta's face light up like a Christmas tree.

"Holy shit, Katniss. This is some heavy duty machinery you've got plugged in behind your couch."

Her cheeks burn crimson immediately. So  _that's_  where that goddamn Hitachi went. She hadn't really missed it - sleeping with a younger man four times a week negates the need for a vibrator. 

"Jesus, Peeta, do you have to wave it around like you're Harry-fucking-Potter?"

He smirks even wider than before and flips the switch to turn it off. She watches as he uses the bottom hem of his shirt to swipe over the length of the thing - was it dusty or something? Dear God, could she  _possibly_  be more mortified?

The kettle whistles angrily, reclaiming her attention and giving her a scant few moments to swim in her embarrassment. She probably shouldn't care as much as she does, but she tries hard to seem self-confident and assured around him: not like a horny teenager that keeps toys stashed around the house for a quick get-off whenever the need arises. She considers for a minute that she  _is_  fucking a horny just-barely-no-longer-a-teenager these days, but it's easier to not  _ever_  think of Peeta like that. It makes her feel far less awkward about their relationship.

He seems to have put the toy back where he'd found it when she comes in with the tea mugs, but the shit-eating grin is still firmly affixed to his face. She not-so-subtly kicks him in the shin as she passes by.

"I don't know what you're so embarrassed about. I'm aware that girls watch porn and get themselves off sometimes. It's...kinda hot."

"Shut up and drink your tea." 

They sit in a heady silence for a few moments, save for the color announcements on the screen in front of them. Their mutual favorite team has completely squandered a man-advantage and the program has gone to commercial when she feels his eyes on her. She flits her gaze his way in time to see him place his mug next to his discarded text just before he reaches for hers in kind. Her fingers release the handle readily when she sees the predatory glint in his eyes. Her tongue moistens her lips on impulse as he slides over nearer to her.

"I've been over here for over six hours and I haven't gotten you off once. That seems awfully rude of me, don't you think?"

"You don't..." she says, her words catching in her throat for a second. "You don't have to...you know..."

"What if I  _want_  to? What if I really, really want to use that thing on you and hear what you sound like when I do?"

His face is so close to hers she can feel his warm breath against her top lip and smell the sandalwood-scented body soap he uses. She could tilt her face just so and claim his lips if she wanted - and she  _does_  - but something tells her not to. She bites the inside of her cheek to suppress a giddy squeal as she bobs her head up and down in silent acquiescence of his request. 

"Take off your clothes...all of them," he growls as he sits back against the plush cushions. He burrows his hand behind one of them, brandishing the vibrator before placing it on the seat next to his right hip. She slides in front of him as soon as she's on her feet, effectively blocking his view of the television, which is back to playing the game. The way his eyes drink her in as she slowly loops her fingers under the hem of her camisole and pulls it up and over her head leave little doubt in her head that he could care less about the score. He shifts noticeably in his seat as he follows the descent of her yoga pants down her hips, her thighs, her knees, her shins before they finally puddle to the ground. She steps out of them and nudges them under the coffee table with the side of her foot.

He pats the tops of his thighs after a moment more of studying her naked form, but shakes his head quickly when she moves to straddle him. He reaches out and tenderly touches her hip bones, pivoting her so her ass is directly in front of his face before tugging on her waist and pulling her down against him. She leans back against the expanse of his chest as he loops her knees over either of his own, spreading her legs wide. His fingertips ghost over her the tender skin of her inner thighs teasingly, making her want to snap her knees closed to stop the torment just before his fingertips dig into the flesh to keep them in place. She arches her neck where it lolls against his shoulder and returns the hungry smile he shoots at her. His right hand releases her thigh to move higher against her sex. His middle finger parts her folds, and his smile gets even broader as it spreads around a little bit of the moisture seeping from her entrance.

"Do you need more than that for this thing?" he asks seriously. She shakes her head quickly and her eyes flutter closed when he slips his hand away to palm the device. Just hearing the sound of the vibrator whirring back to life is enough of make her nipples pucker almost painfully, to say nothing of the rest of her skin from head to toe. She feels her jaw fall slack as soon as he trails the rotating head gingerly along the delicate skin of her inner thighs before pressing it to her center. 

" _Ohh_..." she moans when the toy makes contact with her labia. Peeta's wrist rotates the toy in tiny circles as though to sift the head between her lips to gain purchase on the sensitive bud hidden there. Her fingers circle his left wrist to coax that hand towards her core to assist; he uses his two first fingers to spread her folds wide, and slants the toy upwards just an inch. The insistent buzzing against her clit is almost too much too fast, and she can feel her back arch up and off his stomach as she cries out. 

"Shhh..." he mumurs hotly into her ear and nudges the toy down towards her entrance. The head rapidly collects the juices undulating out of her as he nudges his nose against hers and plants a sweet kiss to her cheekbone. Her eyes open just long enough to see his face arching towards her, and when his lips slant over hers, she breathes a contented sigh right into his mouth. The tip of his tongue tastes of the bitter black tea he refuses sugar in when it flicks against hers. She wonders if her own tastes of the sweet cream she'd doctored her own cup with just before he presses the device to her clit again.

Were it not for their mouths fused together as Peeta ensures they are, lips sliding together greedily and tongues writhing between parted teeth, Katniss would scream his name. She'd claw at her breasts with her fingernails and rock her hips against the toy, begging for the eventual release the device is oh-so-great at giving her. Instead, the fingers of her right hand twine in the silky strands of his curly hair, deepening their kiss as her left hand hangs limply to her side. Her fingers curl into a tight fist or release and strain wide depending on whether he's circling her clit or pressing the head of the toy directly on the mound. She can feel his dick as it strains against his basketball shorts and presses into the curve of her ass, but his breathing is shockingly slow and deep against her cheek. The steadiness that Peeta brings to everything - even when he's on the precipice of making her come - is undeniable.

His teeth nip the bow of her top lip when she finally breaks the kiss. His eyelashes brush against the inside of his glasses when his eyes flutter open to meet her lurid gaze, and his mouth quirks up in the corners.

"Peeta, I'm gonna...!"

He responds by pressing the whirring head directly to her clit with a firm hand. A moan bubbles up from her chest before spilling from her lips, long and loud and jubilant with the sweet relief of release. She rides the crest of the wave with a few whimpers and desperate gasps of his name when he doesn't turn the toy off or pivot it away. Over-sensitive in the best possible way, she falls over the edge once more before finally pushing his wrist aside so she can snap her knees together. He flicks the toy off before tossing it on the couch beside his hip. He wraps his arms around her to hold her close as she pants through her recovery, his lips nuzzling the crook of her neck, and the corner of the frame of his glasses digging gently into her ear.  

"You sound amazing when you scream my name - even if I'm not inside you when you do."

It's her turn to smirk at him as she slides her fingers out of his hair and slips it instead between their bodies and into his shorts. She circles her fingers around his engorged member before laughing breathily.

" _That_  part can easily be arranged, you know."


	22. Everlark at a Coffee Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU

Peeta Mellark loves Mondays. He gets no end of shit from his friends when he bows out early on Sunday evenings, a smile on his face because he’s excited to get home, go to sleep, and wake up Monday morning. His friends think he’s sort of nuts.

He might be. But his friends clearly don’t understand how excellent Monday mornings are for him, because his friends don’t know about Katniss Everdeen.

(Yet.)

He’d been making deliveries to Sae’s Coffee and Tea for nearly a year before Katniss was put on the opening shift. He’d grown used to the casual banter between himself and Delly, the old opener who’d become pregnant with her third baby shortly after Sae’s began ordering their pastries from his family’s bakery. He’d come to think of Delly as a friend, and had been sort of sad to say goodbye to her the last Monday she opened before going off on maternity leave. He didn’t know what to expect from whoever would be her replacement, and he certainly never expected Katniss.

Katniss doesn’t seem the type who’d enjoy working in a coffee shop. Her smiles don’t come easily and quickly. She mumbles more than she speaks, and honestly, she seems to have no taste for coffee at all, considering the huge diet soda Peeta sees her drinking every morning. For the first week or two, she’d just sort of glare at him while he’d stock the pastry case. She ignored every attempt he made at small talk, usually by claiming she had to check the bathrooms or clean the espresso machine (again). Peeta decided finally to just ignore the twisting in his gut every time he saw her as a stupid, one-sided crush that would never, ever amount to anything. It was easier that way, even if there was something about her that sort of haunted him.

Then, one morning, she skipped breakfast. He actually  _heard_  her stomach growl from halfway across the shop. He had to trick her into accepting the slice of fruit and nut power bread by asking her if she thought it seemed stale. He was pretty sure she figured out the ruse, but she ate it… and damned if the contented little sigh when she finished the piece didn’t stir something inside him that was definitely not work appropriate.

She skipped breakfast the following Monday, too. And the one after that. Then Peeta started volunteering to make more early delivery runs, all on the days he suspected Katniss might be the first person in at Sae’s. There were a few confused days while both figured out the other’s schedule. But now he sees her five days a week, for about twenty-four glorious minutes when he knocks on the back delivery door, hands her his pick for her breakfast, and tries not to be distracted by the luscious way her mouth moves when he’s meant to be making the display case look nice. 

He hasn’t told his friends yet that his little one-sided crush is a little less one-sided now. He hasn’t told them yet that the morning he brought in a savory goat cheese pastry bun for her, she’d actually moaned in gratitude when she’d taken her first bite. And that that scintillating noise had been enough to send his sleep (and sex) deprived body sailing over to her, cup her face in his hands, and kiss her like she was oxygen and he was a man drowning. She’d stiffened for just a second before she’d melted to him. Her lips became pliant under his. Her mouth opened enough so he could sweep his tongue inside, where he tasted the last vestiges of pastry on her tongue. She stroked the back of his hands with her fingertips, and when he realized how ridiculously forward all of this had been and pulled away,  _she’d_  actually brought their mouths crashing together all over again. And that’s when his head had gone all shiny, because things like this didn’t happen to normal guys and girls like them.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—“ he’d said, even though he honestly wasn’t all that sorry at all.

“You shouldn’t have waited so long,” she said. It shocked him.

“No. I really, really shouldn’t have.”

Mondays are Peeta’s favorite day of the week. He doesn’t care that his friends dread them, that the world at large dreads them. Mondays are his first morning of the week with Katniss Everdeen.

(Although he’s not sure if it counts as the first morning anymore, now that she’s usually in his bed Sunday nights, too.)


	23. Everlark Meets in Jail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark; Modern AU

The florescent light above the shitty little cot he’s sprawled out on is flickering – even if it weren’t for the massive beer and tequila headache Peeta has going on,  _that_  would be punishment enough. He’s trying to tell that to the officer reentering the room of tiny holding cells when he realizes the officer isn’t alone.

“I am actually sorry about this. Our women’s cells are getting renovated so I’ve gotta stick you in here. This guy won’t give you any grief. Sleep it off, both of you.”

The neighboring cell clinks closed, the noise setting Peeta’s brain on fire. He cracks his eyes open wide enough to see the woman through the metal slats.

He’s never been more grateful for a bullshit drunk and disorderly charge in his life.

It occurs to him there’s a slim possibility this girl, who’d collapsed on the bench in the neighboring cell as soon as the officer locked her in, could be a prostitute. She’s wearing a short dress the color of sunset, she has her heels cradled against her chest like they’re her baby, and her eyeliner is impressively smudged under her eyes. But there’s something inherently pure about this girl – that can’t possibly be it.

He opens his mouth to ask her what she’s in for, but all that comes out is a bitter, beer-flavored belch he can’t cover quick enough with his palm. She throws him a scowl, curls up around her shoes, and throws her arm over her eyes. 

It was a dumb, drunken idea anyway, he thinks, and mimics her. His forearm is cool against his burning eyes, and it blocks out the flickering enough he can actually drift off for a few minutes, or maybe hours. He has no idea which when he wakes up again, except that his head isn’t spinning quite so fast.

“Um… excuse me?” a craggy voice calls out. The pretty woman in the cell next to him is the only other person in the small block. He squints over at her.

“Sorry. I just… I need to use the toilet, and since there really isn’t any privacy, I was just hoping maybe you’d be a gentleman and…”

“Oh. Oh sure, yeah. Of course.” Peeta rolls onto his side away from her and covers his eyes again. There’s an awkward silence followed by water trickling. Then the girl begins to hum, presumably to retain whatever shred of dignity she might have left, considering their current predicaments.

The toilet flushes and she coughs. “Um, thanks.”

“Yeah, no worries.” Peeta’s torn between wanting to go back to sleep and rolling over to see if she’s going to stay awake. His father always told him he could make friends anywhere – why should a night in jail following the same man’s funeral be any different?

“Are you, um, awake?” the woman’s voice says. Peeta sits up (a little too fast, his whooshing head and roiling stomach reminds him), and turns around to nod at her.

“Yeah. There’s no real sleeping on this thing.”

The woman has her legs crossed demurely and is trying to rub away the makeup on her cheeks that makes her look like a raccoon. “It’s probably strange to talk to you, but I sort of can’t believe I’m here. And you look pretty normal, too, so I just wanted to ask – are we dreaming this?”

Peeta wishes today, god-awful day it’s been,  _had_  all just been a dream. The hollow thud of his heart confirms that it was real, all too real. His dad really is gone. He really did have that much to drink. He really did get himself thrown out of the bar and arrested for trying to keep drinking after the bartender cut him off. He might, however, still be drunk enough that he’s just hallucinating this woman talking to him like a… friend?

“God, I wish,” he slurs.

She sighs. “Yeah. Me too.  _Fuck_. My friends are gonna kill me when they come bail me out.”

She pauses like she expects him to say something in reply. He doesn’t, because he’s honestly not sure who might be willing to come bail him out in the morning.

“My friend Madge is getting married next weekend. She just asked for a nice, simple bachelorette party, but I listened too much to my friend Jo and things, ah…”

“Got out of hand?”

“If by got out of hand you mean I passed out in the front seat of my car and got arrested for a DUI when I wasn’t even driving, then yeah.”

Peeta grimaces. He thought  _he’d_  had a bad night – at least this has a chance in hell of getting wiped off his record.

“I’m never drinking again. Ever,” she says.

“Me neither,” he says.

“Can I ask your name?” she says after a beat. It’s then that Peeta realizes he’s been staring at her. Raccoon-eyes and wrinkled dress aside, she’s still–

“Uh, Peeta. Peeta Mellark.”

She smiles. It’s a definite improvement over the scowl she’d worn when she got thrown in the cell. Or maybe it’s just being more sober.

“Katniss Everdeen. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but–”

“It’s alright. If our kids ask, I’m sure it’ll embarrass the hell out of them to hear we met in jail.”

 _SHIT_.

Peeta can’t believe he actually said that out loud.

And he can’t believe she’s actually laughing at it.


	24. AtPM Outtake #1: Fire Beats Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the All the President's Men universe

> Peeta had been inside the presidential mansion before, and though the regal building had always been elegant and enticing, there seemed an air everywhere of something sinister and devious. On more than one occasion he’d found himself double and triple-checking the seat cushion of the chair he’d been about to take, on the off chance that some sort of venomous snake was hidden in the upholstery. But never had he been a part of any delegation with the clout to enter the notorious Aula, and never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he ever would be.
> 
> This makes him even less prepared to see the grand room for the first time, now as president-elect of the nation.

Effie leads the charge through the North Wing of the mansion, pointing out the press room that’ll belong to Finnick, and the writing bullpen that will be Beetee’s to command. The muscles in Peeta’s shoulders coil tighter and tighter the closer they get to the “end of the line”, as Effie had jokingly called it. Surely they ought to have gotten this part over with first.

The walls in front of them curve noticeably. Just before they press forward any further, Effie stops, turns, and takes Peeta by the hands.

“Breathe it all in, Mr. President-elect,” Effie says adoringly. “You’re  _here_.”

"I’m standing in front of a door, Effie. Can we just go on inside before I do any heavy breathing?”

Behind him Haymitch snorts and Effie shoots him a death-glare. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just… I’m terribly proud to be the one to show you this, that’s all.”

Peeta smiles. “Then lead the way, please.”

Effie sighs happily and turns. She presses her palm to a flat panel and a soft whirr emanates before the door slides open. Following his EA closely, Peeta steps into the Aula for the very first time, and instantly feels as though a feather could bowl him over. He’d heard once that the Aula was designed to be intimidating, confusing even. Snow had wanted it unabashedly clear that this was the ultimate seat of power. But Snow is no longer the great bully of the nation, of Parliament, and this place — this now belongs to  _him_.

He actually gets dizzy taking in the dark mahogany desk and its matching bookcases and end tables. A wing-backed chair flanks two couches with matching blood-red silk upholstery lined up near an ornately chiseled hearth. A fire is lapping within, bringing some warmth to the stately room that otherwise seems so cold. Peeta’s nose crinkles — what is that smell?

“Everything can be redecorated to reflect you, sir,” Effie states. “This is more or less how the former president left things. You just say the word and anything can be removed. We could even change out the glass in the dome, if you’d like.”

Peeta looks up and narrows his eyes. The great glass-domed roof is tinted darkly, adding even more of an ominous feel to the room.

“Yes,” Peeta says. “That glass needs to be the first to go. Surely there’s high-security glass that’s not so dark?”

“I’m sure we can arrange something. Anything else pop out to you right off?”

Peeta takes a second to imagine the room with actual sunlight pouring in from above. “We’ll start there. I’d just like to be able to see the sky first and foremost.”

“Wonderful. Haymitch… This way to  _your_  office,” Effie says, her tone a bit harsher.

As the pair retreat, Peeta stays put and continues to drink in the room. Yes, with some actual sunlight from above, this entire place won’t seem nearly as dour as it does now. He’s sure that was done on purpose, and it’s with purpose that he intends to undo it. Just like everything else.

His nose locates the vase of white roses off to the side of the desk. While at once lovely to behold, the pungent odor coming off them is what had assaulted his senses so when he’d first stepped inside. Tiny, razor-sharp thorns prick the insides of his palms as he gathers them up in one fell swoop and drops them in to the flames in the hearth.

 _Fire beats roses_ , he thinks.


	25. AtPM Outtake #2: Baked Goods

"Katniss...will you help me with something?" Rye asks as he puts his pencil down beside his school workbook. Katniss looks up from the newspaper she's reading and quirks her head at him. Delly is due back any moment from a volunteer commitment that was only supposed to take her the afternoon - instead it's well after dinner time and the First Lady is still not home. Hence, Katniss is still on duty.

"I suppose...are you sure you don't want to wait for your aunt?" Katniss says, folding her hands in front of her to show the boy he has her full, undivided attention.

"No, 'cause it's gotta be done real quick, before my daddy comes up from the Aula."

"Well, he should be up soon, Rye, so why don't you..."

"Pleeeeease, Katniss? Ms. Sae is gone and Daddy says I'm not allowed to turn on the oven or mess around in the kitchen without his help. But...it's a surprise for him."

Katniss feels her spine straighten oddly at just the mention of participating in something intended for the President. Sure, when the idea comes from the mind of an 8 year old, how sinister could it possibly be - certainly not like a coup or anything - but still, it makes her feel...

"Katniss? Are you still listening?"

"Hmm...yes, of course, Rye. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I dunno, you had this funny look on your face. C'mon, okay? I promise it won't take too long!"

Katniss takes the boy's proffered hand and follows him into the kitchen. Where he goes, she goes.

* * *

 

"Here. My Daddy says when you're baking things, you gotta wear an apron so your closed don't get all mussed up."

Katniss takes the simple white apron from the boy automatically; it had taken her an embarrassingly long time (and Rye practically slipping off the marble counter-top that he'd clamored atop of to fetch a spiral bound cook book in the split second she'd looked away to check something out of the corner of her eye) to surmise that this "surprise" Rye intended for his father was some sort of confectionery treat. She'd tried to explain to the child she couldn't bake or cook to save her life, but he'd been adamant that baking was in his blood - all he really needed Katniss for was turning on the oven and minding the chocolate while it melts in the microwave. To the child's credit, he does seem to know his way around the kitchen...certainly much better than she does, anyway.

"The oven hasta be at 350*...is that what the little dial says?" Rye asks as he seems to expertly crack eggs into a bowl he seems to have pulled out of nowhere.

"It does," she replies.

The child chirps his delight before seeming to go six places at once. One second he's stirring the eggs in with a hefty pour of sugar, the next he's crumbling wee bits of butter in with a hefty bowl full of chocolate chips and putting it in the microwave before instructing her how to turn it on and lamenting that he  _knows_  how to operate that contraption, he  _should_  be able to just do it himself. Katniss resists giving him a knowing glance when she pulls a metal spoon out of the mixture and sets it in the sink before turning the machine back on. She'll let the little boy have his moment of wisdom without knowing he almost set the kitchen ablaze.

The oven beeps a moment later, and Rye bounces. "Is the chocolate all melty yet? We gotta hurry!"

"The oven isn't going anywhere..." Katniss says patiently. The boy beams at her.

"My daddy says the same thing!" he replies with a giggle. Katniss feels the remark pang her in the gut in a very strange way as she watches the little boy slowly pour the chocolate and egg mixtures together, babbling away about something called "tempering". When the mixture is a rich, dark brown color and has been poured into yet another pan he seems to have conjured into existence, Rye looks up at her proudly. "Can you put it in the oven for me?"

This much she figures she can handle. A blast of hot air hits her smack in the face as she bends to place the pan on the wire shelf and closes the door behind it. Rye's twisting a little timer in the shape of an egg when she straightens, his tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth as he lines the tiny arrow up with the proper hash-mark. 

She wonders if his father looked this way at his age before realizing it's an inappropriate thing to be wondering. All the same, he can't help but reach her thumb out to wipe away a bit of chocolate that's found its way to the child's temple. He shakes his curls out of his eyes and pulls the over-sized apron off his tiny frame.

"We gotta wait for a while for it to cook up. Wanna play sticks 'til Auntie Delly gets home?"

Katniss can't think of any reason to deny this simple request.

* * *

 

The President surprises both Katniss and Rye by pouring in the front door of the residence just a scant few minutes later. Rye rushes him excitedly, and practically shouts the exciting news of the cake they've made him that's baking in the oven right that very second. The President's face grows a little weary as he looks at his child.

"We talked about your kitchen exploits, Duck..."

"Don't worry, Daddy, Katniss helped. I didn't touch the oven once, huh Katniss?" Rye says exasperatedly, tugging on his father's hand and force-marching him to the kitchen before he has the chance to look at the guard and get his answer from her. She's not sure why she follows them - maybe because she hasn't technically been released for the day yet, or maybe because she'd sort of like to see the look on the man's face as much as his son does. She prefers to think it's the former.

She's only a beat or two behind, but when she pushes open the door, she finds the President crouching in front of the oven with Rye in his arms. The little boy seems to be fighting tears and the President is tutting soothingly.

"I wasted all that chocolate..." Rye sniffles. "And the eggs! Grandpa wouldn't be happy to know I wasted all that stuff!"

"It happens, Ry-Ry. Not everything comes out perfect all the time."

Rye's heterochromic eyes survey Katniss and his bottom lip trembles as he pulls away from his father just wide enough to explain that he'd forgotten to separate the eggs and make the whites fluffy (whatever that means - it sounds vaguely like gibberish to Katniss), meaning the cake won't turn out right. He's snuggled back against the President's chest just a minute later.

"It won't turn out quite right, but you know what we can do?" the President says a moment later, holding his son by the shoulders and wiping at the little tears streaking down his cheeks with the pad of his thumb. "We can bake it again. And we'll try both of them to see which one tastes better. Want to try that?"

"It's almost m-my bedtime," Rye hiccups.

"You don't have school in the morning. Maybe just this once..."

The child's face turns from melancholy to jubilant in about ten seconds and throws his arms around his father's neck. The President laughs a throaty chuckle that seems to shoot straight to Katniss's chest; she's about to duck out of the room entirely and prepare to leave when her name is called - and it's awfully poor form to ignore the President when he's addressing you.

"I'm sorry, Katniss, you are, of course, free to go...unless you'd like to, erm, help us make this second cake..." the President says, his voice low. Their eyes meet for one fleeting second before Katniss instinctively looks down at her shoes.

"I appreciate the offer, Sir, but I imagine this would be a task better suited to the pair of you. I'll take my leave now, thank you very much."

"Of course. Rye, say goodnight to Katniss?"

The boy's farewell is quick and distracted, as he's already gathering the ingredients for their second attempt. She lets herself out the front door of the residence and tries not to give another thought to the pair of Mellark men she's leaving behind.

It's not like it's part of her job description to stay.

* * *

 

The next morning, Katniss shrugs on her uniform jacket to check in with Gale at headquarters and complete some mandatory physical exercises in the Tribute Training Center. As she's pulling open the door to her apartment, she startles a fellow Trib who's raising his hand knock on the door frame. She recognizes him as one of the residence guards, though she can't recall his name.

"Agent Everdeen - I'm sorry to disturb, but I've been dispatched with this," he says, holding a small metal tin out to her. She takes it tentatively, testing its weight in her hand before giving it a gentle shake. No sound comes from it.

"May I ask..."

"I'm not sure of its contents, but it was handed to me by the President himself. He said it was urgent you received this parcel this morning. That's all I know."

She thanks the man and he turns quickly as she reenters her apartment, intending to just set the tin down and check it later. Curiosity gets the better of her, and she pops the lid quickly. 

A handwritten note with the Seal of the President catches her eye.

_Rye thought you might like to try the cakes even though you won't be with him at all today. We were pleasantly surprised with the first batch - we hope you'll agree._

_P.M._

A gasp catches in her throat at the casual signature of the President's initials. Her hand seems to reach for a fork in her drying rack near the sink automatically, and the tines sink into the lusciously rich and spongy pieces of cake one after the other. The second is fluffier and crisper in her mouth, but the first...

She keeps it in mind to tell Rye that she prefers the one they made as well when she sees him for school Monday morning. 


	26. AtPM Outtake #3: Troublemaker

"Ry-Ry, stop chewing your fingernails, please," Delly says to the little boy across the table from her.

"Y-Yes, Auntie Delly," the boy says obediently, and begins kicking the underside of his chair instead. Delly looks at him curiously, and puts down the folded-over circular so she can look at him head-on.

"You've been super antsy all afternoon, Duck. What's wrong?" Delly asks.

"Nothing," Rye squeaks, and Delly knows instantly he's lying.

"Are you sure about that? You can tell me if something is bothering you, you know. Or tell your Daddy, when he gets up from work in a little bit," Delly presses.

The little boy picks up his fork and trails the tines through the heap of mashed root vegetables on his plate. He gives the utensil a tentative lick, and rests his head on his hand. "No, it's okay, Auntie Delly."

"Okay, bub," Delly says, lifting her own fork to her mouth. She chews slowly and glances at the child over her circular every so often, only to ever see him pushing his food around on his plate haphazardly, something clearly still weighing on his mind.

Peeta waltzes in a few moments later, and Rye bolts out of his seat without asking Delly if he can be excused. She figures she'll have to chastise him for this later - they're big on manners in their house - but hearing the lament in the little boy's voice as he throws his arms around his father's mid-section stops her.

"Daddy, I promise! I promise, I didn't do anything bad in school today, or yesterday, or any day before it! If my teacher says I did, well, then she's  _lying_!"

Peeta wrenches Rye's arms loose so he can kneel down in front of him and smooth back the boy's rumpled locks. His tone is dulcet, but Delly can tell that the very tips of his ears are tinged the slightest bit pink. Her stepfather is right - Peeta Mellark might be a good politician, but he really is  _rotten_  at telling lies.

"You aren't in trouble, Duck. That's not what the note said, I promise."

The little boy sighs in relief, then scrunches up his face in confusion. "Oh... What did it say, then?"

"It, ah, just said that she's like to arrange a tour of the mansion for your class sometime this term. What would you think about that?" Peeta says, his ears turning even brighter pink. Delly laughs at him, but she does so quietly.

The boy brightens considerably at this. "Oh, like of the Aula and all the offices and Mr. Finnick's reporter room?" Rye chirps excitedly. " _I_  could even give the tour, Daddy, I know all those places really well!"

"You could if you'd like to, but I think I'd have Ms. Effie help. Should we let them see our little apartment here, too?"

"Daddy, there are girls in my class," Rye says, his eyes narrowed.

"So?"

"Girl can't see my bedroom!"

Delly laughs aloud when Peeta does. The man pecks the top of his son's head and scoots him back over to the table to continue eating his dinner, while Peeta helps himself to a plate.

The color drains from her brother's ears in due-time, but Delly can sense something else is going on with him by the slight tremor in his hands, and the way his leg bounces up and down under the table, colliding with one of the table legs with a soft  _thump thump thump_. At one point, she even spies Peeta chewing off the tip of his thumbnail in between bites of his own mashed veggies and stew beef. Thinking back to the preoccupied and jittery nature Katniss exuded when she dropped Rye off earlier, Delly quickly surmises that the two must have something to do with one another.

"Daddy, Auntie Delly told me not to chew my fingernails earlier. I don't think you should either," Rye sighs. When Peeta scowls at her, Delly finds herself laughing even harder.

"You're right, Duck," Peeta says. But the quiet  _thump thump thump_  of his leg continues.

Much later, when she hears the front door of the residence creek open and shut, Delly shakes her head and laughs to herself. "Sneaking out to kiss a girl, Peeta? Shameless."


	27. AtPM Outtake #4: I Just Really Need To Have You Here Right Now

“Daddy! Look… I got a 100 on my maths test!”

Peeta tries so hard not to look as weary as he feels when Rye scampers up to him in the Aula with Katniss close on his heels. It’s the best part of his day, seeing the two of them, but the day will only get longer and longer once they leave. He’s not sure if he’ll even be back in the residence by midnight, which is all the harder when he knows Katniss has promised to be in his bed.

“That’s wonderful, buddy. I’m proud of you.”

Rye beams at him and snuggles into his chest. Over the top of his head, Peeta looks at Katniss and licks his lips. He’d just had her up against the wall in his bedroom that morning, and already, he wants her again. He doesn’t think he can ever truly get enough of her. He has to think of something, and fast, because even though this is supposed to be his time devoted to Rye, he might not make it through the rest of his day without at least sampling her lips before she leaves.

As if fated, Rye’s belly grumbles audibly.

“You okay, Ry-Ry?” Peeta asks.

“My tummy doesn’t feel so good,” the boy laments. “I’ll be right back.”

Rye hoists himself off Peeta’s lap and hightails it to the bathroom. Peeta knows he’s not going to be winning any Father-of-the-Year awards with the slight pleasure he takes in his son’s misfortune, but as soon as Rye’s closed the door to the lavatory, Peeta is up out of his chair and racing to close the distance between he and Katniss.

Their lips meld together like two pieces of a puzzle, and in his head at least, he’s tearing her clothes off piece by piece, leaving them in tattered ribbons in his haste to expose her bare skin and touch her absolutely everywhere. Just the image in the back of his head is enough to make him hard, and he presses his hips against hers insistently.

“Peeta… Peeta, we shouldn’t…” Katniss is half-hearted at best as she says it; he knows from the way she’s rolling her hips back towards him. If not for their suits, he’d be sheathed inside her.

“We should,” Peeta gasps. “You have no idea, do you? I just… Fuck, Katniss, I just  _really_  need to have you here right now.”

She pulls him by his tie and kisses him hard, then stares into his eyes. “I’ll be waiting for you,” she says huskily. “I’ll be waiting for you, and then you can have me however you need.”

His voice trembles as he says, “R-Really?”

She doesn’t vocalize her answer, because they each hear the toilet flush in the other room, and the tap turn on — Rye sings a little song as he washes his hands, and Peeta presses his thumb against Katniss’s plump lips before pushing away from her reluctantly.

“ _However_  you need,” she whispers, her stormy eyes boring like fire into his own.

Peeta can’t help the pained gasp that falls from his lips.


	28. AtPM Outtake #5: What She Can't Say

Her eyes are closed, but she can feel his stare. And she knows that he’s looking at her…strangely.

There’s residual lust in his eyes, sweat dotted along his hairline, and his bare, blonde-hair spackled chest is rising and falling rapidly, and none of that is unusual, not after how vigorous a fuck that just was. She’s still struggling to catch her breath herself. But there’s something else in his features, something about the way his lips are pursed and he’s staring at her. He dips down and kisses the corner of her mouth, and she finally chances a look back up at him, and smiles.

He grazes her face with the pad of his thumb and says “You’re so beautiful when you smile like that.”

Katniss can’t take a compliment, not from anyone, but especially not from the President of the nation, even if he has spent the last week worshiping her, and she him. She rolls and buries her face in his chest to hide the flush upon her cheeks. She feels him grasp her shoulder and shake her gently.

“Katniss, please, I’m trying to…”

She meets his gaze again. And in a strange moment of perfect clarity, she understands what the look on his face means, what he’s trying to say but is stumbling over the words. And it frightens her. Not because she doesn’t want him to say it. Not even because she doesn’t feel it herself.

 _He would just be so easy to lose_ , she thinks.  _And I can’t…_

… _I can’t lose him._

She’s never been so thankful in all her life that now is the moment her comunicuff decides to be glitchy.


	29. AtPM Outtake #6: Lights Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler moment for AtPM; reference to kidnapping/child endangerment

_Things are really muddy_ , the little boy thinks when the rolling thunder makes him stir.  _My head is all muddy._ But Maysi is tucked in his arms and his daddy and Katniss are in the other room, so he supposes things are alright.

Still, despite how tired he is, how sleepy his limbs and eyelids feel, he can’t sleep. The bright flashes coming through his curtains keep startling him and the booms keep coming, like canons are going off in the far distance. He doesn’t like it.

He crawls out of bed, stumbling a little when his heavy foot gets caught in one of the blankets and his knees are wobbly anyway. But he would very much like Katniss to sing to him, or to see his daddy for a minute before he invariably sends him back to bed. He coughs wetly into Maysi’s plush tummy, and creeps into the hallway and down toward his daddy’s room. He knocks, but the door swings open easily.

“Daddy? Katniss?” Rye calls out.

There’s no response. They aren’t here.

He rubs his eyes and wanders towards the living room, calling out for them again. They aren’t in the living room, or the library, or the kitchen. It’s like they aren’t there at all.

He stops thinking about them as soon as the lights go out. As much as he’d like to pretend the dark doesn’t scare him, he finds himself running towards his room, thumping into a couple of tables and the wall in his haste to make it back to his room and pull his covers over his head. By the time he’s burrowed against his pillows, he hears the familiar hum of the power clicking back on, and he groans at himself. He’s supposed to be a big boy, and big boys aren’t afraid of the dark.

“Don’t tell Daddy I did that, Maysi, okay?”

His eyelids are drooping again, and he wonders if he’ll be asleep before Daddy and Katniss get back from wherever they’ve gone. His eyelids are so heavy, in fact, that if it weren’t for the hum of the lights going silent again, he’d barely have noticed the power go back out.

In the silence, he can hear the front doors open, and he squeezes his eyes tight and tries to pretend he’s asleep, because when Daddy comes in, he’ll expect him to be asleep. He hears footsteps coming towards his room, and pretends to snore. But instead of his bedroom door opening quietly, the way his daddy always opens it when he’s trying not to wake him, it hammers against the wall and the footsteps grow heavier as they approach his bed. 

He can’t see for the darkness, but he sits up and starts to say, “Daddy, what’s wrong?” when he smells something funny.

And then things are really, really black.


	30. Synesthetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Prompts in Panem, r4d6; Everlark; Modern AU

Cole puts the cluster of Christmas lilies to his nose and takes a deep breath. The bright orange stamen rubs against the tip of his nose, leaving behind a blotch of pollen that slightly stains his skin. His father wipes it off with the tip of his thumb and smiles.  
  
“White, all of it,” he says in a proud voice. He takes the flowers from the boy and puts a small stack of printer paper in his palms instead. “Crumple that up.”  
  
The boy does so aggressively enough that the paper tears and strips of it flutter to his feet. The boy’s smile is broader than his father has possibly ever seen it before.  
  
“White?” Cole whispers.  
  
“White,” Peeta repeats.

* * *

 

_Three Days Earlier_

 

* * *

 

  
Peeta is leaning over Rue Turner’s shoulder, gesturing with his hand the approximate degree of a curve for the apple she’s sketching for their still life unit when a tap comes at his classroom door.   
  
“Does that make more sense, Rue?”  
  
“Sure, Mr. Mellark, thanks,” the girl says brightly and leans forward to try the shape again as Peeta pads over to his door and pulls it open. A student assistant from the administration office hands him a folded note with a smile and nods at him before turning on her toe and walking back down the hallway. Peeta lets the door close behind him as he flips the paper open and reads over the scrawl easily identifiable as Ms. Trinket’s.  
  
Cole is in the office again. Your wife is on her way. Please ask Mr. Beetee or Ms. Seeder to watch your class and come to the office at once.  
  
Peeta rolls his eyes and crumples the note to toss in the paper recycling bin. “Guys, keep working quietly, please…I’ll be right back.”  
  
Several students nod, and despite knowing most of them will pull out their cell phones as soon as his back is turned on them, he steps across the hall to interrupt Seeder’s planning period to have her step in to supervise the class.   
  
“Is it Cole again?” Seeder says with a grimace.

“And it’s bad enough that Katniss is on the way,” Peeta says exasperatedly.

Seeder shakes her head. “Well good luck,” she says as she follows him into the hall to step into his room while he walks down the hallway to the office. He sees his wife pull her sunglasses off her face right as she steps into the school entry way. Her scowl seems to say it all.  
  
“You didn’t have to come, Kat, I could have handled whatever—”  
  
“Oh, no, Effie was very insistent that I come in as well. You know Haymitch loved hearing that our son was sent to the office for the third time this month and that I had to come help you deal with him,” she sneers.   
  
Peeta nervously scratches the back of his neck as he holds the office door open for her to step through and follows in behind her. She’s positively vibrating with anger, and he knows part of it is directed at him—he feels that’s a little unfair, considering his classroom is clear across the school from their son’s special needs room.  
  
Effie Trinket is in a tizzy when she lets them into her office, and her voice is even squeakier than usual as she launches in on the entire story of the choice words Cole had for his teacher today. In the corner of her office, Cole sits with his arms crossed and his head down, almost as if he’s taking a nap.  
  
“His language and attitude have reached an unacceptable level, Peeta. I’m afraid I have no choice but to—”  
  
“Effie, please…”  
  
“He is suspended for three days, starting immediately,” Effie says. “He can come back to school next Thursday after he’s had some time to screw his head on straight and get over this nasty little attitude of his.”

“So as punishment, he gets an extra-long weekend? How does that make any sense?” Katniss says exasperatedly. In the corner, Cole kicks the leg of his chair, causing it to squeak across the parquet floor, setting all of their teeth on edge.   
  
“I’d rather hoped that you two could use the extra time to perhaps take him to a behavioral specialist and ascertain whether or not he possibly might have Attention Def—”  
  
“We’re not medicating him, Effie,” Peeta snaps. “We’ll pull him out of school and homeschool him before we put him on those zombie pills.”  
  
“That’s your prerogative, Peeta. But something had better be different about him when he comes back one way or another, or he’ll no longer be welcome at this school. Do I make myself quite clear?”  
  
“Impeccably, Effie,” Katniss says, getting out of her chair quickly and stringing her purse over her shoulder. “Come on, Cole, you’re going home with your father right now.”  
  
Cole mutters something imperceptible before he stands up and grasps around for his cane. He waves it in front of him to check for anything in his way before following the sound of his mother’s voice into the main foyer.  
  
“I don’t have a sub for the afternoon, Effie, what do you want me to do?” Peeta says as he ruffles his hair in frustration.  
  
“I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you focus on your son for the next week, Peeta? Take the time off with him?” Effie proffers. “We all say the same thing to parents of misbehaving students—they need some extra time with their role-models to adjust their behavior…”

Peeta gapes at her. His class is starting a watercolor unit the following Monday, and it’s his favorite course to teach. He opens his mouth to object, but Effie shakes her head sternly.   
  
“Not optional, Peeta. Have a good day,” she says with a wave of her hand.   
  
Frustrated is not a strong enough word to describe how Peeta feels as he stomps into the foyer after his wife and son and slams Effie’s door behind him. The office assistants startle, but Katniss just glares at him.  
  
“I have to get back to work. Cole, you and I will talk about this when I get home tonight. Which, apparently, will be late.”  
  
“Whatever, Mom,” Cole says, tapping his cane on the floor next to him.  
  
“Excuse you?” Peeta snaps at him. “You don’t talk to your mother that way, sir.”  
  
Cole tugs at his hair, his tell that he’s getting agro and needs to be left alone before an eventual meltdown. Katniss folds her arms across her chest and looks at her husband.  
  
“I’ll see you at home. Both of you,” she says as she turns on her toe to leave.  
  
“Guess Dad will see you. I’m not gonna see shit, now am I?” Cole mutters under his breath.   
  
Peeta opens his mouth to scold his son again, but his eyes flit quickly to Cole’s crossed, completely useless grey eyes that look so much like his mother’s. Except that Cole’s can’t look back at him and see the disappointed, aggravated look on his father’s face. Cole taps his cane on the ground again as he stares, unseeing off into the distance. 

As per usual, Peeta has no idea what to do next when it comes to dealing with Cole. But apparently, he has five days to figure it out.

* * *

 

Peeta’s doing the dishes from dinner by the time Katniss finally walks through the front door. Ivy wipes the heavy pot that her father had used to whip up the garlic-marinara sauce before putting it in the corner cupboard and giving her mother a quick peck on the cheek.  
  
“Hi Mom, ‘bye Mom!” Ivy trills happily as she takes the stairs two by two to her room.   
  
“Hey, where are you going?” Katniss calls after her exasperatedly.  
  
“She’s going to the movies with her friends,” Peeta explains, drying his hands on a tea towel before pumping some lotion into his chapped, water-logged hands.  
  
Katniss tosses her bag onto one of the barstools and huffs. “Damn it, Peeta, are you just content to let our kids run amok whenever they goddamn please?”  
  
Peeta’s eyes go wide as he surveys his wife, her hands on her hips and her scowl even more deep set into her face than it had been at the school earlier.   
  
“What did I do now? It’s not like I rewarded Cole for getting suspended! Ivy asked if she could go, and I told her yes so long as she did her homework for the weekend first! I checked it myself!”  
  
Katniss pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “And did you talk to him at all when you got home?”  
  
“I sent him to his room to think things over,” Peeta says, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter; everything about his posture is defensive against his wife’s barbed words.  
  
“Of course you did,” she groans, stalking over to the fridge and yanking it open to pop the cap on a bottle of beer.

“What the hell does that mean?” he shoots back at her.  
  
“It’s what you always do with him, Peeta. When Ivy gets in trouble at school, you’ll sit down and have a deep, meaningful conversation with her about why what she did was wrong, but when it’s Cole, you either let me deal with him or you send him to his room to think things over,” she says.   
  
“When was the last time our daughter got in trouble at school?” he replies.  
  
“Oh, of course not, your favorite child is perfect,” Katniss sneers.  
  
“Hey! I do not play favorites with our kids!” Peeta yelps.  
  
Katniss shakes her head back and forth, her aggression suddenly waning as she sips the drink in her hands. “You don’t. Not intentionally. But whether or not you mean to, Peeta, you treat Ivy better than you treat Cole. Maybe Effie’s right, maybe that’s why he’s acting out at school so much.”  
  
Despite the even keel of her words, it stills sends Peeta reeling. How dare she accuse him of not loving their son enough?  
  
“So you walk in the door and then immediately pick a fight with me because our son got in trouble at the school I teach at, so this is clearly my fault right? That makes a ton of sense, Katniss.”  
  
“You can’t relate to him, can you? You have no idea how to parent a child that doesn’t have 20/20 vision like Ivy does, do you?”

He opens his mouth to object, but can’t seem to find the words to argue her point. Suddenly he’s thrust back to 10 years previous, when Ivy and Cole’s pediatrician suggested they take Cole to an eyesight specialist to check his vision. More over, he’s thrust back to holding his wife and their infant son in his arms and openly sobbing in front of the doctor when they were informed that Cole’s eyes never developed properly and that he is 100% blind in both.   
  
Peeta had just completed the mural of zoo animals on their son’s nursery wall. He’d spent months getting the manes and bodies anatomically perfect, wanting the monkeys to be easily identifiable from the giraffes and the lions notably different from the bear cubs in the far corner. He’d spent hours with his son asleep in the Bjorn strapped to his back cycling through brush after brush, paint tube after paint tube…all apparently for nothing. In his anger following an argument with Katniss about the situation a few days later, Peeta had thrown a bucket of white primer against the mural, completely destroying all of his hard work before he’d even had a chance to take a picture of it. It had remained that way for weeks until Katniss finally made him paint over the whole thing properly, erasing all trace that the mural had ever existed in the first place.  
  
In the here and now, he gnaws on his lip before staring down at his feet. “If you’re accusing me of not loving our son, Katniss, I swear to God…”  
  
“You love him just fine. But loving him and relating to him are two different things. You don’t relate to him. You don’t try to relate to him. And it doesn’t make you a bad father, Peeta, but it sure as shit makes you a lazy one,” she says almost too calmly.  
  
He swallows hard as the words wash over him. In a way, this is maybe the worst thing she could possibly have ever said to him; this, at least, he knows is true.

Peeta does the only thing he can think of to do—he turns on his toe and stalks into the den he uses as an office and slams the door behind him. The handle lock clicks in place with a flick of his wrist just before he snatches the iPod off his desk and buries the earbuds in his ears.

* * *

 

He wakes up with a stiff neck and an aching lower back. He’s draped over the IKEA drafting desk, books and colored pencils and drawing paper scatter all around him. His iPod earbuds have fallen out of his ears at some point during the night and the little device lies on the carpet near his feet, the last vestiges of battery pumping out the chords of Camille Saint-Saëns  _Danse Macabre_  through the tiny speakers.  
  
He’s pretty sure Katniss doesn’t know about these books. As a general rule, his wife doesn’t come into this room much, and when she does she never pokes around, knowing from the early years of their marriage that he’s far too sensitive about her getting a sneak peak at paintings or sketches that he’s done before they’re complete. He keeps these books in a filing drawer under the drafting table anyway, so she’d have to be searching for something to be able to find them to begin with. They all have very similar titles:  _The Special Needs Parent Handbook, The Child with Special Needs, An Introduction to Young Children with Special Needs._  The one titled  _Shut Up About Your Perfect Kid_  had made Peeta laugh morbidly when he’d bought it, but it, like almost all the rest, barely got cracked open but a handful of times. For better or worse, most of the books’ content deals with children on the Autism spectrum or developmental disorders like Down’s Syndrome. He’d grown frustrated with how little the books addressed blind children and more or less tossed the books aside until last night, when he’d combed through every one of them for something, anything that seems applicable to how he feels in this moment. By and large, he’d still been sorely disappointed.

He knows Katniss won’t wake up on a Saturday morning before 8 without some prompting, but he also knows that sleeping in his studio and not in bed with her probably angered her all the more. He brews a pot of French press coffee and doctors it exactly how she likes before slowly climbing the stairs to wake her. When he perches on the side of their bed next to her and holds out the cup, she snatches it from him groggily and sits up to sip it slowly as it cools. Her scowl is less deeply set on her face after a night of sleep, but he can tell she’s not happy with him.  
  
“You’re right, Kat. I…I don’t know how to relate to him. All I’ve ever wanted to do was protect him and Ivy both, but beyond keeping him safe from the world, I don’t know how to talk to him. What to say to him. I guess I am a lazy father,” he says sheepishly.  
  
“You didn’t exactly have the greatest role models yourself,” Katniss says, her voice not as sharp as he might have expected.   
  
“Neither did you. But you’re a better mom than I am a dad,” he says gravely.  
  
She sets the cup on the side table and leans forward, kissing his cheek lightly before lolling her head on his shoulder. “What were you doing all night that you didn’t come to bed? Painting?”  
  
“Reading. Trying to, anyway. Making up for 12 years of lazy in one night by trying to think up a miracle way of connecting to him all at once. You know how I am.”  
  
She kisses his shoulder. “You’re not a bad father. You just need to try harder with him. Try something else. You’re the best teacher at the school, and everyone knows it. You know it. If anyone can figure something out, it’s you,” she tells him.

“And what if I don’t? What if this just gets worse and worse and Effie really does expel him? It’s the only school with a blind/special needs program in the state…”  
  
“You’ll figure out something, Peeta,” she says with finality. “We can’t afford to think otherwise.”

* * *

 

Peeta doesn’t shut the door to his studio, despite being in there all day Saturday, still racking his brain for the solution. Either nothing comes, or whatever does come isn’t anywhere near good enough. Before he starts yanking his hair out by the fistful, he decides to start drawing instead. He’s sketching a lioness bathing her cubs when Ivy walks in and wraps her arms around her father’s neck.  
  
“Can I go to Kate’s house, Dad? Cole’s driving me crazy,” she asks sweetly as she glances over his shoulder at what he’s sketching.  
  
“Did you ask him to turn the music down?”  
  
“Yes! But he won’t,” she says with a heavy roll of her eyes. Peeta pinches the bridge of his nose in response.  
  
“Yeah, I’ll drive you over there. Let me go talk—see if your mother will talk to him,” he says as he stands and kisses his daughter’s forehead. He’s not sure what possesses him to look backwards when he does, but he finds her leaning over the drafting desk and putting the little silk lily blossom in the single vase in the corner to her nose.  
  
“You know that’s silk, honey. It shouldn’t smell like anything.”  
  
“Mom spritzes it with her perfume sometimes. You’ve never noticed?” Ivy says simply, as if the information is a complete and total given.  
  
“Really?” Peeta says with a shake of his head.  
  
“Yeah, Dad. Maybe you should use your nose more,” Ivy says with a shrug. “Can we go now?”

A half of an idea is forming in Peeta’s head as he grabs his car keys and drives his daughter the two miles over to her best friend’s house. By the time he gets home, the idea is entirely formed and if he says so himself, it’s quite brilliant.

* * *

 

“Cole? Cole, wake up…” Peeta whispers as he shakes his son’s shoulder at 6 the next morning.  
  
“What? Why?” the boy says groggily.  
  
“We’re…trust me, okay?” Peeta tells him, smoothing his son’s unruly curls and nudging his sides until he crawls out of bed. The boy reaches automatically for his cane just to the left of his bed.  
  
“Dad, I’m really tired, can we do whatever later?” Cole asks.  
  
“Now, buddy. Trust me, alright? Come on, I grabbed you some clothes for the day, they’re right here,” Peeta says, stacking a neatly folded pile of garments he’d grabbed from the closet and chest of drawers on the bed to his son’s right. “I’ll give you five minutes, then I’ll come back in and we’ll get started.”  
  
“Get started with what?” Cole asks impatiently.  
  
Peeta kisses the boy’s forehead and steps out of the room without providing an answer.

* * *

 

His son doesn’t need any help going down the stairs of their home, a fact which Peeta doesn’t need reminding when Cole lets himself out of his bedroom and into the hallway.  
  
“Dad?” Cole calls out.  
  
“Right here,” Peeta says.  
  
“Where’s Mom?”  
  
“It’s Monday—she’s at work and Ivy is at school. It’s just you and me today, bub. Come on, we need to get going.”  
  
Peeta jogs down the stairs quickly, looking back up as his son descends, his hand clutched on the banister and his lips barely moving as he counts the stairs to himself. When he reaches the landing, Peeta places his hands on the boy’s shoulders and leads him not into the kitchen, but the side porch where he’s set up their activities for the day. Cole twists his face into a scowl so like his mother’s that Peeta can’t help but smile.   
  
“Will you tell me what we’re doing now?” Cole asks as he fumbles for his bearings.  
  
“Tap your way to the patio table. There’s a chair pulled out for you,” Peeta tells him before taking his own seat. When Cole lowers himself down, Peeta crosses his hands and nervously twists the wedding band on his left up and down his knuckle. “You know when Ivy and I talk about art—you know, sketching and watercolors and portraits, all that?”  
  
“Sure,” the boy responds glumly.

“You and I never talk like that,” Peeta says matter-of-factly.  
  
The look Cole gives him is one of pure frustration.  
  
 “We don’t talk about it because I’ve never known how to talk about art with you. And that was wrong of me, buddy. I should have tried.”  
  
“How the hell are you gonna…”  
  
“Language, Cole,” Peeta says calmly.  
  
“How are you gonna teach me about art?”  
  
“It occurs to me that maybe it’s easier than I would have realized if I hadn’t been so fixated on the one aspect of it. But you don’t have to see to appreciate art, I promise. So we’ll start with the basics.” Peeta slides a tall glass across the table, the condensation leaving a trail in the moist air of the early spring morning, and takes his son’s hands in his own, coaxing the glass into the boy’s palm. “Here. Drink this.”  
  
Cole seems dubious at best, but he picks up the glass and feels his way to his mouth carefully. He takes a big sip, his eyelashes fluttering slightly as he swallows. “It’s milk.”  
  
“Yep. Just regular old milk.”  
  
“What does this have to do with art?”  
  
“It’s not art in general; it’s colors in specific, bub. That’s what we’re starting with. Milk is a color called white. It’s sort of a primary shade, a base. If I can get you to understand white, I can get you to understand any color in the world.”

The boy sips from the glass slowly until every drop is drained, then sets it back on the table.   
  
“Okay?” he says, clearly wondering where his father is going with this. Peeta grabs his hand gently by his wrist and coaxes his fingers to spread before placing the next item in his palm.  
  
“What’s this?”  
  
“It’s just a piece of chalk from my classroom. Your classroom doesn’t have a chalkboard, so you’ve probably never…”  
  
“It makes a really awful squeaky sound when you use it, right?”  
  
“It can sometimes, sure.”  
  
Cole rolls the little stick in between his flat palms and pulls a face. He places it on the table a little less than delicately, causing the stick to break into a few separate pieces.  
  
“I don’t like how it feels against my skin. It’s…”  
  
“Gritty?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I don’t like it because of that either, honestly. It’s why I don’t use my chalkboard much. Want to try something else?”  
  
The boy shrugs, but sticks his hands out again, correctly assuming his father will place something else in them. The stalks of the Christmas lilies are slender and Cole’s fingers wrap around the center of them instinctively.

“It’s in your hand with the bit you want to smell pointing to your right. Give it a good sniff,” Peeta says. Cole puts the cluster of Christmas lilies to his nose and takes a deep breath. The bright orange stamen rubs against the tip of his nose, leaving behind a blotch of pollen that slightly stains his skin. His father wipes it off with the tip of his thumb and smiles.  
  
“White, all of it,” he says in a proud voice. He takes the flowers from the boy and puts a small stack of printer paper in his palms instead. “Crumple that up.”  
  
The boy does so aggressively enough that the paper tears and strips of it flutter to his feet. The boy’s smile is broader than his father has possibly ever seen it before.  
  
“White?” Cole whispers.  
  
“White,” Peeta repeats.  
  
Cole nods once, but his smile fades away quickly after that. He grips his cane and taps it lightly against the brick of the patio. “How do I know that what I’m picturing in my head is really white, though?”  
  
“Even people who can see sometimes see colors differently. How I see white might be different than how your mom sees white, and she might see red a little differently than Ivy does. It’s all subjective, Cole. You don’t need to see art to know it’s there, I promise. If you can feel it, or smell it, or taste it, or hear it…then you can experience it. Just in a different way than I do.”  
  
“You…you shouldn’t feel like you have to do any of this stuff, Dad. Not if you don’t want to.”  
  
Peeta sighs. “I do want to do this for you, Cole. I’m just sorry I didn’t before.”

His son bristles, but after a minute he relaxes a little and his body language becomes less tense. He finds something to rest his cane against and sits forward with his hands outstretched again.   
  
“Okay. So…what’s next?” Cole asks, his smile returning to him.   
  
Peeta’s heart swells as he feels the door to his child opening to him just a little. It isn’t perfect. But it’s a start.


	31. It's Kind of a Funny Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Prompts in Panem r6d5; Everlark; Modern AU; adult content

Peeta watches, enthralled, as Katniss’s head continues to bob up and down. Her mouth is certainly more than capable of finishing him like this if she so chooses, but she’s maintaining speed, not increasing it. Her fingers grip him at his base, working the flesh she can’t fit between her lips. The luscious sucking noises she makes sure he hears make him groan, her name a joyful murmur escaping his throat. The tip of him brushes her tonsils and she swallows around him — that’s what makes him tug her hair until her lips release him with a pop and a smack.

She’s wiping a bit of moisture from the corner of her mouth as she shimmies up his torso. She grinds her slit enticingly against his throbbing member, and he feels his own mouth quirk up in a wolfish grin.

“I love when you come to bed like this,” he grunts as she shifts her hips to try and catch him between her folds and sink down around him.

“You like just laying there while I do all the work,” she teases. A look of bewilderment crosses her face, and she reaches between them, grasping him again to help guide him inside her.

“You aren’t ready yet,” he tuts. When Katniss is ready for him, he knows it, and he’s learned similarly when she isn’t.

“I’m fine,” she says, her stubborn streak shining through. Still, there’s too much friction between them, and Peeta knows if she has it her way, she’ll ultimately be sorry.

Good thing she never wrestled, he thinks as he bucks his hips — and her body — upwards. He grasps her thighs as he flips her, intent to splay her out on her back and dive between her legs. He can practically taste the salty musk of her spreading over his tongue when he hears the solid thud and her strangled moan of pain, not pleasure.

“Shit!” She knows better than to speak so loudly, how thin the walls between the bedrooms are. “Ow, fuck me!”

He scrambles to the side of the bed and snaps on the light. Once his dark-adjusted eyes stop seeing spots, he sees her clutching the side of her head just above her eyelid.

“Oh shit… Katniss? Shit, I’m so sorry!”

"Ow,” is her only reply.

“I am so, so sorry,” he repeats, and tries to gingerly cup her face. “Can I see…?”

She pulls her hands away, and he grimaces. The thud was quite clearly her temple smashing against the solid oak headboard, and already, a welt is bubbling up under her skin. She isn’t bleeding, thankfully, but her right eye is damp with tears.

“Shit… Katniss, I’m so sorry!” he says again.

“It’s alright… Ow…”

“You need ice and… should we take you to—”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before a high, piercing wail erupts from the next room. Asher, it would appear, has been disturbed.

“I’ll go get him and get you an ice pack,” he says, trying not to sound too disappointed. Somewhere between accidentally injuring his wife and waking up their toddler, his erection has completely deflated. And if Katniss wasn’t turned on enough for him to slide into her before, he somehow imagines that she’s even less wet now that he’s nearly crushed half her face.

“Just go get him,” she groans, sitting up and grabbing for her discarded nightgown. “I can manage the ice pack.”

“It doesn’t look good, Katniss, you should really just lay back—”

Another desperate scream comes from Asher’s room, and Peeta knows if they aren’t quick about it, they’ll have more than one cranky child on their hands.

“Oh my god, Peeta, just go get him before he wakes his sister!”

He doesn’t argue again, just slides quickly into his boxers and hurries into the hall. He sees Katniss pad in the opposite direction towards the stairs as he pushes the nursery door open and lets the bird-shaped night light guide his steps towards Asher’s crib. He scoops the fussy, flailing toddler into his arms, kissing the matted, blonde curls as he does so.

“It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay. Shhhh… Daddy just tried to give Mommy a little concussion, that’s all…”

 _So much for romance_ , he thinks.

* * *

It’s rare that Katniss is ever awake before him, but when Peeta wakes the following morning, her side of the bed is empty and cold. He listens for tell tale signs that either of the kids might have woken her, but the running of the shower assures him they must still be down after the 1am debacle. Too bad, really, because he’d very much like to make last night up to her. Perhaps he still can.

He strips off his boxers and pads towards the en suite, cracking the door just in time to hear the water shut off.  _Dammit_ , he thinks — and then he gets a look at her. Or rather, he gets a look at the impressive, dark blue bruise that has nearly swollen her eye shut.

“Oh Christ, Katniss!” He rushes towards her and tilts her face to get a better look. Never in his life would he imagine he’d flipped her that hard.

“Ain’t it pretty?” she says dryly.

“Oh, honey, I never meant to…”

She stands on her tip toes and brushes her lips over his. “You never would in a million years, Peeta.”

Her hands rifle through the vanity drawers until they find her oft used makeup bag. He hasn’t seen her wear anything but a bit of tinted moisturizer and lip balm since Asher was born, so it takes him a minute for her to register what she’s doing.

“Oh, Katniss,  _please_  don’t tell me you’re going to leave the house like that!” he chokes out.

"I have to. It’s my day to volunteer in Hope’s class.”

“Call Delly! Call Madge! Call and say you’re projectile vomiting, Jesus, but you cannot possibly…”

“I’ll cover it with makeup best I can and if anyone asks I’ll just say…”

“You walked into a door. You fell down the stairs. Yeah. They’re all super convincing, let me tell you.”

He bristles when she reaches for him. He tries to pull away, but she spins him towards her and places her hands under his jaw to coax him into looking at her.

“Peeta Mellark. You are not your mother. You will never be your mother. And never in a million years will our babies go through what you and your brothers did. Seriously — we’ll laugh about this in a few days when it fades out. And if any idiot thinks for one second that you would ever purposely hurt me, I’ll simply explain in glorious detail how my pussy champ of a husband miscalculated the location of our headboard in the dark. Alright?”

She shakes him once as a bit of fog leaves his brain and looks at him imploringly until he begrudgingly nods. A hint of a smile crosses his face. “You’re so pure I’m not sure anyone would believe the words ‘pussy champ’ came out of your mouth.”

"Then they’ll have no choice but to believe me,” she says with a smirk. “Now go wake up the kids, will you, while I work some magic with my concealer stick, eh? If the damn thing isn’t expired by now…”

He kisses her solidly, teasing her lower lip briefly with his teeth before spinning around and heading for the bedroom.

“Hey Mellark,” she calls after him. “You know you owe me an orgasm, right?”

His mouth waters at the thought.


End file.
